


Molt

by ellowy



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Child Abuse, F/M, Familiars, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hetalia Countries Using Human Names, Hospitalization, Magic, Magic Revealed, Misunderstandings, References to Drugs, Slow Burn, Strong Female Characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 17:37:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 73,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17626661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellowy/pseuds/ellowy
Summary: A slow burn witchcraft familiar AU, focusing on Lili (Liechtenstein) and Gilbert (Prussia). Follow her struggles from orphan to witch.Incomplete. Comments help me gain inspiration. Marysue warning!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I should mention and give credit to pruliech-things on tumblr for their witch/familiar au moodboard that inspired all of this. give them a follow and some love. 
> 
> I want to finish this but am currently going through a time of hardship. This is probably the longest fic I've ever wrote and I've put so much heart into this. Please, if you see a misspelling or error of some kind, don't mention it in the comments - I'll find it myself. I've yet to read over this myself completely because of the length and my lack of inspiration. 
> 
> Hetalia (as unpopular as it is nowadays) helped me during a hard part of my life. I'm hoping that it will help me again. I'm hoping it'll maybe help someone else too, in some way. 
> 
> If you enjoy this fic, please leave a comment.

It starts with mushrooms. 

She's so young that the memory is faint, glossed over like the first swipe of clear nail polish over a delicate pink. She remembers only a few things distinctly, like how the leaves crunched beneath her yellow boots and the sound of her foster mother calling her name from the house. The clearest part though is the fairies. 

Beneath those red mushrooms, speckled with white just like in her fairy tale books, are little sprites of every color. They had wings scarcely bigger than their own bodies that looked as if they were made out of spider webs, perfectly translucent besides when the light perfectly caught them and made them twinkle. Their laughter was like chimes and Lili was enchanted, letting them play across her open palm and not daring to touch them herself. It seemed like if she'd so much as brush against them they'd fold over like wet paper with injury, just like butterflies. 

She looks back on this memory too often, wondering if it was just a childhood dream or her whimsical imagination. Her rationalization of the memory just feels like sweeping bones beneath a rug, the shape felt every time she comes back to revisit it. 

-

At six, she squats on the ground and cups her ear against the trunk of the ancient tree in the backyard of her foster home. It's so big and heavyset that there's enough room for three swing sets to comfortably hang off one of it’s branches and during midday it's shadow engulfs the yard in sweet shade. It's easily the biggest tree in their neighborhood and each of Lili's foster siblings love it, sharing countless hours together swinging and rushing around it's mammoth trunk. 

It's too tall and thick to climb, but they try their best anyways when their foster mother isn't looking. When Lili's spreading her arms out trying to find some kind of purchase or nonexistent grapple on the tree to start climbing, she's hears the first whisper. 

It's like a croak at first, the sound making her leap from the tree with a gasp, afraid that she brushed up against a camouflaged frog without knowing. It's enough to grab the attention of her siblings who rush to her side asking her whats wrong all at once while others look for the cause of her outburst. Ignoring them, she looks to the blank bark of the tree and then tentatively presses her ear back against the trunk, squeezing her eyes shut and shushing everyone’s noisy chatter. 

"Knock knock," the tender voice of an old woman croaks and Lili is gasping again, eyes springing open to see a crowd of faces looking at her as she presses her ear against bark. 

"What? What is it?" 

"What do you hear?" 

"Is a frog stuck in there?" 

"No," she whispers maybe too loudly to be considered a whisper, "but there's someone in the tree!" There's a moment where the shock registers on everyone's faces, twisting and churning like a wheel until it lands on the selected emotion. Lili isn't intimidated by the attention in the slightest, rather she's only full of the confidence only a child can have.

"I don't believe that for a second, a person can't live inside a tree," one of her older siblings spouts, face screwed up with disbelief as some of the younger kids begin mimicking her actions. She hates being called a liar but her shock and excitement easily outweighs her want to bicker, so instead she looks to one of her sisters intently. 

"Do you hear it?" she asks with gusto that mimics the cowboys on old westerns hiding behind covers from the bad guys. Her foster sister, just as serious, shakes her head quietly and seems to press against the tree even harder. One of the older boys scoffs and turns to walk away, but Lili can't bring herself to care in the slightest. Again, she presses her against the rough bark and closes her eyes shut tight. 

There's the sound of the other kids shuffling around and whispering to each other, some digging their fingers between the sturdy bark and another feeling around in the hole of the tree where it's gone smooth over the years. The sensation of reaching for something just out of reach pulls in her, every limb in her body stretching until finally, her fingers just barely brush against it. 

"Knock knock," the woman's kind voice is there again, leaving Lili's insides thrumming like a plucked guitar string left to play out a note. She's smiling before she even realizes it. 

"Who's there?" she replies, just a tiny whisper. 

"Boo." 

"Boo who?" 

"Oh no, please don't cry!" the motherly voice is all teasing and fake worry, fading as Lili pulls away to hunch over and laugh as hard as a six year old can. Her siblings are swarming her with questions and she’s so breathless she can’t reply for a moment. When she tells the joke to them, nearly bursting at the seams with laughter as she gets to the punchline. They spend the rest of the evening with Lili listening to the voice and repeating it's jokes, their fun even attracting the older kids to come over and sit and listen.

That night at the dinner table, just saying the word boohoo is met with laughter that bubbles and shoots uncontrollably like a geyser (much to their foster mother's confusion).

-

At seven, her first foster mother passes away in her sleep unexpectedly. The nice social workers try and keep their makeshift family together, but there's only so much room at the other homes. Lili boards the train with two of her older brothers, but not without saying goodbye to her favorite tree, the best in the whole neighborhood with three whole swings. Her siblings stopped caring to listen awhile ago. 

"I love you. Be good." the old woman's voice says. 

She cries and clings to the bark so hard she swears she feels warmth radiating back, kissing against her forehead. She cries when she hugs her friends for the last time, she cries when the social worker hugs her, she cries hardest when they board the train. 

-

Her new foster home isn't bad, but she still misses her tree, the red and white speckled mushrooms, her old friends, and her old school. It's hard at first, but she thankfully she knows a lot of good jokes to help her fit in and the schoolwork is easy. The best part about her new home is that its close to the library in town and her new foster parents encourage them all to read plenty, even if they can't get most of them out of the fiction section. 

She picks up books about mythical creatures, wonderlands, and witches that have pointy hats and long green noses. These books instantly become a favorite and she makes it her own secret personal mission to find a unicorn (but she'd settle for a dragon too). She spends countless hours memorizing and greedily soaking up the information, so much so that her new foster parents tease her about it good naturedly. They're thrilled she’s taken such an interest in reading, unlike some of the other kids her age.

For Halloween she borrows one of the older boys big black shirts and freehand paints some old stockings with black stripes that are a little on the wobbly side. She's lucky enough to have red shoes, so they're perfect makeshift ruby slippers. Out of cardboard, a lot of messy glue, and black paint, she makes a fantastic witches hat all by herself. She’s a witch every year after that, pretending to cast spells on mummies and vampires. 

Of course as she grows older there are some kids who don't get it; she's been pushed into trees before while trying to talk to them, shoved into the dirt while peaking beneath mushrooms. Sometimes even her foster siblings get tired of hearing her go on about the difference between a dragon and a wyvern, which she can't possibly fathom. She learns to be quieter at some point, but at night she whips out her flashlight beneath the covers and reads about things that glow in the dark and birds with lion's tails. 

It's the only thing that really makes her feel special. Her grades are stellar, sure, and she's consistently praised for her patience and well-mannered behavior, but while other kids know every dinosaur by heart she can see and talk to things they can't. It's something she's learning not to brag about, as the other kids get upset and accuse her of making things up. 

Molding it into something socially acceptable is something she's becoming increasingly good at. During recess she learns to settle for hopscotch and playing tag once her friends grow tired of adding ingredients to her imaginary witch’s cauldron. After all, it’s only fair that she can't decide the games all of the time. 

At home though, after chores and dinner and the like, she's free to read and play whatever games she wants. It becomes something steady in a life that too often shakes and trembles beneath her. When the potential adopters come in and pass her by, she reassesses herself by looking into the mirror until her fingers look like weird tentacles and her face a blob of unrecognizable skin. 

She might be pushed around at times and soft spoken but she's loud when it counts and she has a heart so full that she swears that there's a second one beating along with it. Ultimately she decides that although their dismissal hurts (and it'll probably never not hurt), it's their bad for missing the opportunity of getting to know her. She has something better than dinosaurs and rocket ships combined after all. 

-

When she's twelve, she wakes up in the middle of the night having to use the bathroom. It’s a normal occurrence and she's never really been afraid of the dark, so she slips out from her bed and tiptoes past her sleeping sisters without a lick of fear in her belly. She leaves the door open behind her and sneaks out into the hallway, finds the bathroom, and does her business in a drowsy stupor. 

On her way out of the bathroom though, something stops her. She looks down the hallway, the light of the full moon streaming in through the pretty stained glass windows. In between the gaps of light there's a small figure standing in the darkness. She can make out a skirt and long, long hair. None of her sisters have hair that long. 

"Hello?" Oddly enough she's not scared at all. She feels only a deep seated calmness and that same out of reach switch again; the same one she felt while talking with her neighborhood tree. It's a little easier to touch this time and she's familiar with it unlike before, the feeling warming her bones as she caresses it. She takes a step closer. The figure doesn't move.

"Hello?" she tries again, voice a bit louder this time. She's relieved when the figure moves, revealing herself underneath the light of the full moon. She looks perfectly alive, long brown hair with pretty blue eyes with a thick splash of freckles across her nose. Lili's never seen her before, but she doesn't seem out of place either. She looks to be only seven or so. 

"I'm Willow," her voice is the only thing that seems off, ringing through the halls with an echo that Lili's doesn't. Rather than running back to her bedroom, she does what only feels right and gets onto her knees and shuffles forwards into the light of one of the window panes. 

"I'm Lili," is her meager response. The little girl's clothes look old and out of date, but she still looks ethereally pretty anyways. The girl smiles then, almost like she can read her thoughts. 

"Can you tell Mom and Dad something for me?" she asks, lips not quite syncing up with her words. Lili, who's been learning to take the role of the older sister now that she's a bit older, nods and straightens her spine trying to give the look of dependability. 

"Tell them I'm with grandpa and I'm okay, so they can quit worrying so much." Lili stares intently at her lips, still entranced by the way they move. When her lips stop moving Lili looks into her deep blue eyes and realizes that she can almost see through them. 

"Okay, I'll tell them that." Her eyes drop to the floor as she remembers her manners. It’s not polite to stare.

"Thank you." 

"Your welc-" 

The girl is gone, the only thing left being wet footprints on the rug and moonlight. The curtains flicker with a gust of wind and Lili sits there for a little while, until the moon hides behind the clouds again. When she slips back into bed, she recites the words as to not forget. 

-

In the morning she finds her foster mother and pulls her to the side (no easy feat when there's twelve other kids to take care of) with the promise of telling her something very important. Her foster mother finally concedes and lets Lili follow her to her personal bathroom, where she starts to apply her makeup. 

"So what is it sweetie?" her foster mom says while expertly applying lipstick at the same time, the red making her lips bloom from winter to summer. Lili's eyes are transfixed on one of the small pots of perfume in the room, with the little squeezy pump. They're not allowed to be in their foster parents bathroom usually, unless they have explicit permission.

"Willow wanted me to tell you that she's with grandpa and that she's fine, so you and Jim can quit worrying now," she's too busy worrying over how she could have said dad but didn't, knowing full well that it's okay if she doesn't, but still feeling awkward anyway. Some of the younger kids call them mom and dad, but Lili feels too old for that now. 

What catches her attention is when the tube of lipstick drops into the sink and swivels down, her foster mother's hands dropping to her stomach while a look of complete shock and horror overcomes her expression. She looks to Lili and suddenly she feels suffocated, the calm that she had before swept away with her caretaker's rare show of panic. 

"You talked to Willow?" The woman drops to her knees, lipstick smudged and long forgotten. She looks crazed, eyes sweeping over Lili's face in a way that makes her feel shy. Her eyes drop to the ground, locked on her pink socks. 

"Yeah," a short, clipped answer. 

"When?" 

"Last night, in the hallway." She's shuffling now, hands wringing together. "She had long brown hair and freckles and she was wearing this old blue dress," she's mumbling now, unable to look her foster mother in the face. When she looks up she sees her face has gone completely white, tears beginning to brim at the corners of her eyes. 

Before she can say another word, her foster mother is scrambling towards the toilet, retching into it. At a loss of what to do she, she leaves to get help.

-  
That night her foster father uses the paddle, which only the really, really bad kids get. She knows because the last time they used it, it was because one of her sisters pushed a kid at school and accidentally broke his arm. He did it in front of everyone, the room a hushed chill that was a rarity for such a noisy home. Back then she had wondered how it felt, but now she wishes she never knew. 

"Fifteen," she sobs openly, her eyes burning with tears that cloud her vision and chest hollowing and filling with the force of her hiccups. The paddle comes down onto her open hands again and she wants to curl them into fists, but they're like hot coals and leather stretched so thin she's afraid movement will make them crack and tear.

"Sixteen." Her voice is a wet, shrill sound. She doesn't recognize it anymore. 

They stop at twenty. Her foster father, who she had always considered a very tame and kind man before this, screams as he scolds her. But she doesn't hear a thing, can't look at anything but her own dark red hands that are blurs to her eyes. 

-

For a week, it hurts to pick up a pencil and write. Her teacher doesn't ask questions but looks sympathetic; she know she's a sweet girl. When no one's looking, she slides a piece of chocolate into her bruised hands secretly and Lili savors it, letting it melt on her tongue. 

At home, her favorite books are taken away and she's grounded, concealed to her room. After the week is over, the tension is still there every time her foster father looks at her. Her foster mother on the other hand, looks like she's about to cry every time they so much as exchange glances. The other kids, afraid of their foster father's new found wrath, avoid her like the plague. 

When a nice social worker comes for her, her siblings all hug her goodbye. Jim at the end has a begrudging sad look in his eyes as he gives her a clipped goodbye. Her foster mother hugs her the tightest, thanks her repeatedly, and gives her some of her favorite books to leave with, including a brand new one. 

It's thicker than her others and a little harder to read, with no pictures and pages filled with thick walls of text. On the front is a full moon and the title written in silver says, Ghosts and Other Spirits.

-

This time, before going to another foster house where she could potentially be adopted, she checks into a hospital with her very polite and kind social worker. She's there for the entire process and the doctor is nice, making jokes to distract her from the little hammer making her leg bounce. 

The therapy is weird, but it's okay too. She talks about her friends, her school life, how there's bullies sometimes but they're never really bad. When the therapist asks her about her last foster parents she wants to cry, can feel the sensation burning in the back of her throat, but she swallows it and only says nice things about them. 

-

The next home lasts only six months. School is easy and fun at first, but at home one of the older boys takes to picking on her and tries to corner her regularly. He takes her feeble amount of lunch money, trips her, pulls her hair, and steals her books. This translates into her becoming a target even at school, where crowds of rowdy boys and girls poke fun. Trouble is starting to seem inescapable, cornering her in all places. 

Sometime after her thirteenth birthday, she finds herself in a standoff with her bully at the top of the staircase, his thick grubby hands wrapped around her birthday present. He leafs through the pages of the book and somewhere in the middle he stops. 

"Wow, what a pretty picture," his voice is thick in sarcasm as he holds it up for her to see, her cheeks burning wildly with embarrassment. It's a colored painting of a unicorn with a fairy sitting delicately on top, easily one of her favorite illustrations in the book, even though she doesn't think fairies grow that big. 

"Give it back," she sounds like a broken record, swiping for it only for him to pull it just out of her reach. The boys behind him laugh and snicker like hyenas and he tuts at her, shaking his finger. 

"I can make it prettier." His grin is all teeth before he spreads the pages wide and starts to hack up spit and phlegm from the back of his throat. Outraged, Lili rushes forwards and manages to grab hold of her book, trying to twist it away from someone twice her size and weight. She can hear his gross thick laugh as she struggles and before she knows it, she's snagged a page of the book and torn the illustration right down the middle. 

"Oh, look what you've done!" his voice is shrill, excited that she's still struggling despite the rip in her book. He says something else that she can't hear this time, the sound of her blood boiling with rage and embarrassment too loud as she feels something ignite in her like oil meeting a match. 

"Give it back!" she yells this time, even more shrill than him and so loud that it makes her own ears ring. There's in overwhelming sensation burning at her fingertips, a force that's bubbling at the surface of her skin that jolts out of her with the words, yanking the book from his fingers and sending him spiraling backwards. She stumbles back against a wall just in time to see him clip the shoulder of another boy and send them both tumbling down the stairs, screaming with real fear. 

The sound of their thumps make her blood run from hot to arctic cold, the posse going completely quiet and backing up before dispersing with their tails tucked behind their legs. Lili rushes forwards, grabbing the tall post at the top of the stairs the same time that her foster mother rounds the corner so fast she almost slips. 

The bully's arm is bent completely the wrong way, folded in half like a pancake and the other boy's leg is twisted up in all the wrong ways. Both of them lay in an ungainly heap, too scared to move but calling out with sobs. Her foster mother drops to her knees at the same moment that Lili bends over and dry heaves at the top of the stairs. 

-

Her foster mom goes to the hospital while her foster father stays home to have a long conversation with her about what she did. He's stern but he doesn't beat her hands like the last one did, instead just seeming tired. Everyone knows that she's picked on here and she seems to be regressing into herself even more when potential adopters come into the house, hiding away into her storybooks. She knows this can only mean bad news.

When it's over and she's trudging to her room, one of the older boys who was in her bully's posse steps out from a room, as if he was waiting for her. 

"I saw what you did," his voice is chilling and seething. Having cried all day she's too emotionally spent to even give a response, but she recognizes what he means. She didn't even touch her bully but he went spiraling down the stairs like a rag doll with that other boy. She stares blankly, though fear and regret slither like hot brands around her heart.

Maybe what leaves her the most numb is the realization of what he's holding in his fist near his chest, so tight that his hand shakes. He's the only boy in the house that comes from a religious background. 

"Freak," he spits before slamming his door shut. 

-

She moves out in the span of the next three days. 

-

This time finding her a new foster home is slower, where as before there seemed to be a million choices. She spends more time traveling with her social worker than she would like but she doesn't mind the traveling or the long quiet silences where he works and she reads her books. Right now she's focusing on the meanings of different crystals, gems, and flowers and it keeps her steadily occupied for the long trip up north. Where they're headed its colder than anywhere she's ever been and she can't decide if she likes it as much as she likes the sweltering south. Even if she's been exiled, it's still home.

She watches the scenery flicker outside the train window like a movie and before she knows it, the credits are rolling when they pull into their last station. They stay at a hotel, eat breakfast with conversation that feels forced, and finally check into a hospital where she's reviewed again. She's glad to see that the doctor she meets with is still kind and funny, easing her stress with lighthearted jokes. 

Only this time, they leave with a set of orange pill bottles in addition to her regular lollipop. She asks them what they're for and the doctor's smile warps into something tired and frayed plastic at the edges as he explains they'll just help her be normal, even make her a happier person. As he explains, she holds the bottles and reads the names of medicines she's never heard of that sit like lead on her tongue. Medicine is only for sick people, isn’t it? 

She knew she was different but she kept quiet about it, never bothered anyone too much, and kept to herself. She thinks of the boy holding his cross so tight his knuckles went white and the stupid illustration in her book that day. Her mind rakes like nails down the memories of all the times she ever tried to talk to trees, put pennies in her shoes for good luck, or talked about river spirits and pixies. 

She bites her cheek so hard she can taste copper, her mind a hotbox of confusion and grief. Those boys probably gushed about what a freak she was and her teachers about her oddities. Her heart is a crumpled wet thing in her chest as she wonders how something that brought her so much happiness could end up damning her like this. 

-

In the next foster house there's no little kids. The youngest person there is her, who’s thirteen, and the next oldest being sixteen; most of these teenagers are ready to leave the foster care system and people rarely ever stop by and visit to potentially adopt. Her foster parents are young but sharp edged people who are hard pressed about rules and punishments. 

Two other kids along with her have to take their pills at breakfast and dinner, where they're watched intently by their foster parents and have to open their mouths to see if they swallow. The first couple of nights are hard, as she's not used to sleeping alone in a room, but she manages despite the nightmares. Some nights she'd rather read than go to bed, even if it leaves her dead tired the next day.

One of the older girls has a vicious temper and lashes out on occasion, but most of the other kids just seem depressed and half baked. The person who scares her the most is the boy that's eighteen who has to take six pills a day. He walks around in a stupor, eyes glazed. He's forgetful, apathetic, and only responds when spoken to. 

Lili wants to talk to him some days, can feel the words hanging off her tongue when by chance their alone together, but they never come. She's too scared of how he'll react or if he won't even react at all. His counter ticking to eighteen is almost up and half the time someone has to grab his schoolbag for him so he doesn't forget it. He's failing all his classes, his future is something nonexistent.

She's terrified that she's going to end up like him.

Despite the mist in her brain that makes it hard not to drowse during lessons, she doubles her efforts twice as hard to pay attention. When she wants to nap during the day she sits on their back porch and tries to read instead. She keeps her hands to herself when she's teased during school. The effort of it though is nothing short of Atlas juggling the world on his shoulders, her once rose colored life now smothered by a black and white filter. 

-

She never thought she'd meet her demise in her seventh period biology class. 

At first when she trudges in she's in her regular medicated daze, numb with a mouth full of cotton, but it doesn't last long when she sees the specimen on her teacher's desk. Mr. Humbert is an intense collector or bugs, ranging from grasshoppers to butterflies, but he's particularly a fan of moths. 

Everyone in the school knows this because of the creepy displays he puts up of them around his classroom. Each wall has a strip of dead butterflies, some crickets, and various colorful beetles. His class is one of the most memorable and easiest to pay attention to because of how eccentric he is too; it seems he can't go a lesson without gushing about a ladybug he found on his way to work. 

She had distaste for his hobby before but now it's making her gut wrench and curl hard enough that the drugs seem to melt off of her in her cold sweat. In one of the large glass containers on his desk is a little fairy beating furiously against the glass, large green wings extending from her back and swooping with a flourish in an arc. She's absolutely beautiful, sparkling and glowing with magic.

"Ah, charming isn't she?" Mr. Humbert pops into her field of vision as if on cue, adjusting his horn rimmed glasses and pushing them up snugly to his nose. "I found her on this very campus if you can believe it! It's not even this butterfly species season and her markings are unlike anything I've ever seen before..." as he trails off he approaches the fairy, lifting the jar to admire her closely. Lili takes the opportunity to get a closer look as well, squeezing her textbooks to her chest as she pales upon closer inspection.

The fairy locks eye contact with her immediately, as if overcome with the realization that Lili can in fact see her; she drops to her little knees and stares at back at her, each of them in their own ways trapped. 

"What are you going to..." she trails off, something stuck in her throat. The fairy's little eyes are still hooked onto her like snares. They both know what he's going to do. His trophies are all along the room, after all.

"Well, I was thinking at the end of this period I could do a little demonstration of how it all works. You see Jeremy Harper was asking if I could and I've done it so many times, I really don't see why not..." he trails off only to say, "huh, this is the first time all day I've seen her calm down. She seems to have an unusual amount of stamina..." 

It's then that the bell rings and Lili can finally tear away her gaze, hurrying to her seat and flopping down with enough lack of grace it earns her a few pointed stares. She couldn’t care less though, her heart pumping out an unsteady rhythm as she looks from behind a few classmates heads to see the fairy is still pointedly looking at her, crumpled onto her knees. A quick glance around the classroom and she only sees the usual bubblegum popping apathy.

It's easily the slowest class of her entire life. All she can think about are those tiny little hands beating against the glass container and about what's going to happen if she screws up again. She thinks of the boy at home who's practically catatonic, thinks of the names of her medications, and how bad the next home will be if this one is already hell. Mr. Humbert clicks through the slides and she takes notes without thinking about what she's writing, body on autopilot. 

She wonders how many prescriptions she'd earn if she did this, how much a single fairy's life costs, and the ideas nearly make her eyes brim with tears. She chews at her fingernails intensely when she's not writing, the pain ebbing at her own anxiety. If she didn't interfere, that precious rare life would die pinned to board to be admired by people who wouldn't even recognize what she was. 

Halfway through the period, she thinks of the red mushrooms, the fairies, and her tree. She thinks of all the Halloweens and all of the storybooks and knows that she can't let this creature die. Her heart turns into something heavy in her chest for a moment before it blazes, lights on fire and beats like it's only got so long to live. 

Her teacher almost never leaves his desk when teaching, staying put in his comfortable plush chair brought from home while he goes through the slides. The only feasible way she can imagine getting away with this would be distracting him, grabbing the jar, and cracking open a window. Or grabbing the jar and running outside. The good thing is the classroom is situated directly next to an entrance, but Mr. Humbert is a particularly young teacher and she gets the feeling he'd definitely go into a sprint to catch her. 

She studies the windows the best she can from her seat, but she's situated across the room and hasn’t ever felt the need to study the mechanism before. It's clearly not a situation where she time to fumble, so it looks like…

...she's going to have to run. 

The last dregs of the period are like the after taste of cold medicine, her legs bouncing up and down with badly concealed anxiety. She feels more alive than she has in years, her fingers toying with her long braids as she revises her plan and the best escape route. When the last bell of the day finally rings, she feels like it's her own personal death knell. 

Leaving behind her bags and schoolwork at her desk, she approaches the teachers desk slowly, at what she hopes is a casual pace. There's a rush of students out the door that she's among, but no one's approached Mr. Humbert so he's solely focused on his newest subject, tapping at the glass. As Lili approaches, praying for some kind of distraction, her prayers are miraculously answered. 

One of the teacher's pets of the class, a boy with coke bottle thick glasses and dark hair, slides up to Mr. Humbert on his left side, the fairy being placed to his right. He places down a thick folder full of notes along with their textbook and prattles on about some question that Mr. Humbert's leaning in to take a look at. 

It's like moving through water as she approaches the desk, everything slow and yet fast at the same time, the fairy perking up in it's glass jar at her arrival. In a fluid motion she sweeps the jar into her hands and presses it tight against her side, trying to hide it as she passes by in front of the desk. Though Mr. Humbert's face is stuffed into the book, the bookworm next to him immediately takes notice.

"Hey, what are you-" He reaches out to grab her by the arm and her heart leaps, body immediately bolting and lurching away from him as she cradles the jar to her chest. She shovels past students with a strength she didn't know she even possessed.

"Some-somebody stop her!" Mr. Humbert calls out from behind with the kind of urgency that immediately captures the attention of every person down the hall and in the classroom. As she swerves into the hallway and clips into more people, she can hear the bookworm behind her hot on her trail, his black shoes screeching with his haste. 

"What are you doing!?" She hears Mr. Humbert yell just as she throws her body against the heavyset doors leading outside, fingers already scrambling to get the lock on the jar open. It's a simple latch but her fingers are slow and stupid, trying to pry open the lid when she still needs to unhook part of it. 

Her heart slams up into her throat when the long legged bookworm finally catches up to her, catching her by the arm and jerking her around to face him hard. Her other hand thankfully is tight on the jar so she doesn't drop it, but then his hands are grabbing for that too with a kind of ferocity that shocks her for his lithe frame.

"Let it go! You're stealing you know that?" He yells at her, the jar beginning to slip from her fingertips. She looks up into the boy's eyes and sees frustration and disgust so plainly that it sends her back to that night in the hallway with the boy and his cross, back to her foster father paddling her hands. In that split second she looks down and sees a reflection of herself in that fairy's eyes, desperation seeping from them.

Then she feels the spark again, the presence, the warmth, that tangible feeling right beneath her fingertips. She doesn't even need to stretch this time, it's only a twitch away. She slams into it with wide fingers, every piece of her connecting.

"No!" she screams and this time she can see the force crash into him like a wave, blowing back his hair and cheeks and sending him flying through the air into a nearby bush. She doesn't have time to reflect, her trembling fingers busy getting the final latch and finally opening the jar. She extends it into the air as high as she can and the fairy shoots from it like a catapult when she rises to her absolute peak. 

"Live for the both of us!" She cries for the first time in months, a scabbed wound on her heart tearing open to bleed fresh blood. She drops the jar as her first tears fall and the fairy only turns back to look at her once, when it's high as the treetops. It's mouth opens and she hears those chimes again, the ones from childhood.


	2. Chapter 2

She's taken home and almost immediately a social worker shows up with the emotional range of a rock, guiding her into the back of a taxi and then to the police station. She'd broke the boy's arm and clavicle bone with the force of her push and that called for a stern talking to. She'd been to hospitals before, but the police station was a new experience in itself. 

She cries almost immediately upon arrival and for thirty minutes straight up until they leave. The cop who's been assigned to scold her does a double take when her social worker confirms that she's in fact the one that broke a boy's clavicle and arm with a push, at her full height of five foot two. The cop looks almost guilty as he chides her, drinking from his coffee in tense silences filled with her sniffles and tweaking at his mustache. 

After that, it's packing up at home. She fills her suitcase with her books and meager amount of things like she's done before, but this time she doesn't feel sad so much as empty. Though, there is a spark of relief in the pit of her stomach that at least the fairy is free to live her life, even if she can't. 

Some of her housemates come out to say goodbye, others don't. What surprises her the most is when the comatose boy from before wordlessly comes out to watch her leave, offering her a small smile. It makes her feels like she did something right, tears coming to her eyes for the millionth time that day as she manages to give him a grin so big that her face nearly tears into two. 

-

She checks into a hospital and this time, she doesn't check out. 

\- 

A single fairy's life is equated to three more prescriptions, she finds out. 

-

She doesn't go to school anymore though she asks sometimes when she'll be allowed to when her doctor visits. It's a conversation that he skirts, adjusting his glasses and unable to look her in the eye. When she "gets better" is the answer that she is force fed, along with the new medications. 

Her room has two hundred and thirteen white tiles on the floor and yellow walls with only one window (that is incapable of being opened) with orange curtains. She keeps the curtains open always and stays up late at night to watch the moon pass by her, flickering from waxing to waning faster than she can keep track of. 

They've taken away her books and replaced them with nonfiction, allowing only some of her requests. She was denied the ones about crystals and gems, but allowed the one about astronomy, so she brushes up on her constellations as much as her window's view will allow her. They've also given her supplies to draw with, but she's afraid if she draws anything purposeful it'll only lengthen her stay, so she only does the vaguest and most abstract art.

She's allowed out of her room for certain times during the day and can travel around the hospital quite a bit in comparison to some of the more unruly patients. Some of them stay tucked in corners of busy hallways in wheel chairs, never blinking and truly catatonic. Others move too much for what society deems fit, hands curled twisted towards themselves and jaws clinking during their speech. None of them are bad people, Lili thinks. 

She spends most of her time outside when she’s able; time passes easier and there's something about the fresh air that clears her mind. She doesn't poke around like she usually would, as there's always a guard about and she wants to keep on her best behavior, but she does keep an eye out for birds, bugs, and things of the flying variety at times. 

On occasion she'll play chess with one of the older men and she's even taken up knitting from some of the ladies to cure her boredom, but there's not a lot of people her own age who are willing to talk to her. Days pass by less like sand slipping through her fingertips and more like someone's shattered the hourglass completely. Before she knows it, her birthday's gone by and she's drawn enough pictures to cover one of the walls in her room. All the nurses know her by name and regard her with a thinly concealed pity and scrunched, pursed smiles. 

She tries not to let it bother her, but most nights it does anyways. 

-

Things taste differently now. 

Even a simple red apple doesn't taste nearly as sweet as it did when she was a kid, the juice filling her mouth like lukewarm spit with every bite. She can't decide if it's because of the medication she's on or if it's because something inside of her has changed and finally keeled over after all of her hardship. 

Sleep finds her often these days, curling around her with promises of dreams and warmth in odd places. It's like she's blanking out in scenes from a movie of her own life, reengaging in the plot when she's startled back awake by the nurses. Her concentration is similar, leaving her reading entire pages of books with no retention of the information at all. 

It helps the days pass but the cost, the aloofness that sweeps away her thoughts, leaves her feeling like a straggler left at sea. She holds onto memories of what seems more and more like a past life like they're her last droplets of freshwater, while the sun, a bright yellow pill, fries her skin and leaves her shivering at night. Moments of clarity are seldom. 

There's a place in her chest that's too numbed to feel now, so small she struggles to feel the shape of it clearly.

-

Then one day her personal nurse is replaced, for reasons unknown to her, with a beautiful woman. The day she comes in Lili is immediately struck by her calming, sweetening presence and the way she holds herself, shoulders back and head held high. But there's something else to her too, something that washes away the medication in that familiar cold sweat and pulls her consciousness to the forefront. 

Whatever it is, her new nurse registers it too, as soon as she comes in. It's like they're dogs meeting a public park, restrained by their owners and leashes but staring across a wide plain of grass. 

"Hi Lili, I'm Mrs. Johnson. I'll be taking over for Mrs. Nates from now on." She's eyeing Lili the same way, like she's trying to figure her out. But she doesn't forget her job either, flattening her skirt and pulling in her cart like any other nurse. 

"Hello, it's nice to meet you," she replies and before she can help herself she blurts, "your earrings are very pretty." It's true too. They're bright red ladybugs that looks just like rubies, something she usually doesn't see very often. Most women prefer pearls, as they're coming into style. Absentmindedly Mrs. Johnson brings her hand up to her earrings, glancing at Lili with a smile wrung with worry as she checks her papers. 

"Thank you, I just got them recently..." She seems carried away, reading over the papers and glancing at Lili every so often, so Lili keeps quiet, swinging her feet at her bed. She can't help but stare though, something inside of herself pulling, clawing at this woman in a way she had almost forgotten. 

Finally, Mrs. Johnson puts down the papers and sighs, sorting out Lili's medication. When she's done she brings the two little cups over, one for water and the other for the colorful assortment of pills. Just as Lili's hands are about to take them though, the nurse pulls back; Lili looks up to catch her biting her lip and furrowing her eyebrows. 

"Okay. Uhm." She seems a little nervous, moving backwards and placing the cups back down on her cart. The sensation in Lili's chest prods harder then, like it's finally ripping out of it's cocoon, still too wet and soggy to be of much use. But it's still there, beating like a second heart. 

"Can I touch the nape of your neck dear? It won't hurt, I just need to check something." Mrs. Johnson hunches over a little and presses her hands to her thighs, straightening her dress in what seems to be a nervous tick. Swallowing dryly, Lili nods and tosses her long hair to one shoulder, turning her back to the nurse. She feels compelled to trust her for some reason, her comforting presence bathing the room despite how anxious she seems.

When Mrs. Johnson's hand connects to the back of her neck, it's like all the tension has slipped out of her body. Her second heart flutters in her ribcage, tearing from it's wetness into a thing with wings. Any ache is gone and the fog of the medicine isn't something she has to fight anymore. 

"Oh my God," her nurse doesn't gasp so much as she loudly inhales. Lili just sags into her touch, like it's a warm bottle of water against freezing hands. As soon as it's there it's gone though, leaving the nape of her neck tingling and feeling oddly raw. Even the sweep of her hair falling back in place is enough to make it ache. 

"Lili, honey, how old are you?" Mrs. Johnson's sitting next to her now, taking her hands into her own. Lili's a little shocked by the intimacy of the movement but allows it if only because of how right it feels. Her mouth feels comfortably numbed when she answers, her eyes meeting Mrs. Johnson's teary ones. 

"Fifteen." 

"Where's your family?" Mrs. Johnson looks even more dismayed, like she couldn't possibly believe what she’s seeing. The words hang a little heavy in the air, like Mrs. Johnson expects them to be hiding beneath her bed or just around the corner. 

"I'm an… orphan." It's not something she has to say often, but it's like chewing on gravel when she says it. Mrs. Johnson squeezes her hands tight, her red nails pressing into Lili's skin. She looks away for a moment, sucking in a noisy breath before gently patting Lili's hands. She looks like she’s struggling to keep a smile, eyes gluey with tears.

“It’s okay.” Lili smiles and squeezes her hand back, confused but trying to help. At this Mrs. Johnson presses her lips together tight, nodding for a moment before she leaves the room in such a rush that she forgets to give Lili her usual medication. 

-

The next day after that, Mrs. Johnson comes knocking at the usual hour but with the unusual presence of a police woman. Upon seeing her in uniform Lili can't help but openly gawk, eyes going large as teacups as the two came in and shut the door quickly behind them. A pang of anxiety goes through her, only to quickly recede with Mrs. Johnson’s presence. 

"Lili dear, hello again. I'm here with a friend this time, Mrs. Wentworth. We'd like to talk to you for awhile and ask a few questions, if that's okay." Mrs. Johnson helpfully explains, flattening her skirt against her thighs and smiling in that nervous, yet genuine way. 

"I... Yes, that's fine," Lili replies, biting and swallowing down the question if she’s done anything wrong. Quickly she gestures for them to sit any place they like and like yesterday, Mrs. Johnson sits on the bed next to her. Mrs. Wentworth sits at the chair at her desk, holding an open notebook with a pen. It reminds her of the last time she went to the police station, only this time she feels much more comfortable. She's not sure if it's because of Mrs. Johnson or the fact that they're in her room, where she spends so much time. Mrs. Wentworth's image is framed by color, Lili's drawings all along the wall behind her. 

"So, how old are you Lili?" Is the officers first question, her smile kind and easygoing. That starts the first of a long scrawl of questions including where she was born, school, her nonexistent family, her past foster homes, and even some easy questions that she'd normally feel timid in answering about, like her hobbies and interests. Besides her initial discomfort, she feels plush and comfortable for the rest of the conversation, Mrs Johnson rubbing her back soothingly whenever she recalls something unsavory. Thankfully, they never push too hard for answers. 

"Now, Lili I need you to answer this one honestly, okay?" The police officer rubs the back of her neck and gives her a tired, sad smile before dropping her hand back down and folding her hands together. Lili nods, feeling a spike of anxiety pierce through her. As if Mrs. Johnson can sense it, she's rubbing her back again, instilling that sense of peace through her until the anxiety ebbs. 

"Why did you release your teacher's... catch that day?" The phrasing is a little awkward, but she's looking at Lili like she expects a certain answer, like she knows what she's going to say. Uncrossing and recrossing her legs, Lili looks away and can feel her face turning pink. 

"You're going to think I'm crazy," she mumbles, glancing at the police officer to see her leaning in even more. She looks serious, more than anyone ever has when discussing this with her. 

"I'm not going to think you're crazy. You can tell us the truth." Mrs. Wentworth says evenly, like she's gauging her reaction. The tension in the room is stacking up again and Lili's afraid they'll laugh and it'll come crushing down on top of her, or even worse, sneer and call her stupid. She's almost upset that she has to say it, feeling as though these nice people will up and leave after she admits the worst to them. With tears filling her vision, she answers, pulling away from Mrs. Johnson’s suddenly too hot touch to hunch in on herself. 

"I saved a fairy." 

"What kind?" The question has her swiveling her head, tears stopping in their tracks. 

"What?" she croaks. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Mrs. Johnson smiling.

"What kind?" Mrs. Wentworth seems just as delighted to ask the question. She looks at her like she's a marvel or some kind of hidden treasure and Lili chokes out a laugh, her hands coming up to wipe at her wet eyes while her body unravels a little bit more.

"It had uhm..." She sniffles for a moment. "She had these lunar moth wings. I'm not really sure." She looks at the police officer with bleary eyes, to find her intensely jotting down notes and smiling before clicking the top of her pen and turning to look at her. 

"Did you know lunar fairies are quite rare? They bestow blessings sometimes. What you did was a very, very good and honorable deed. You should be proud of yourself." Before she's even halfway finished speaking, Lili is crying again, tears burning hot tracks into her skin freely as she presses her fists into them. She lets Mrs. Johnson pull her into her side this time, comfortingly rubbing up and down her back and rocking her side to side. 

She hasn’t cried in so long that it hurts, like digging her fingers into a fresh bruise or diving into water so cold it bites at your skin. She doesn’t feel it at first, her body seeking the release quicker than she can think about it. Her entire body feels like a flood, sweaty skin, runny nose, wet eyes, slick palms.

"You really believe me? I'm not crazy?" she chokes out between hiccups that shake her entire feeble body. Like a cool balm, Mrs. Johnson's voice comes. 

"No, you're not crazy. Everything is real, the fairy was real - it's still real. We believe you one hundred percent, hun." She rubs her palms into her eyes even harder, as if to remind herself that it's not a dream. 

"You're a witch, just like us." Mrs. Wentworth chimes in, her smile sounding in her voice with its softness. 

"A witch?" she asks.

"That's the word for people who have magic. Witches." The way she says it is almost sad, but Lili doesn't care a bit. She knows that she's not lying, that she means it. 

Her heart jumps and soars. 

-

The first thing she says when Mrs. Johnson finds time to visit her the next day is, 

"Did yesterday really happen?" 

Which makes Mrs. Johnson smile at first, but then she looks a little sad, because they both know how serious she is when she says that. So instead Mrs. Johnson just nods and sits with her outside, even when Lili knows that her shift is long over and she's not suppose to be outside late enough for it to get dark. They stay outside anyways. 

The conversations start off slow although Lili wants to know everything soon and fast and immediately. Mrs. Johnson says that there’s a lot to learn and it's easier to learn things one at a time. So they go slow, Lili dissecting one topic at time like how a Victorian woman eats. Tiny, little bites.

In her first day she learns that witches (yes, witches she thinks with a relish), usually have a big families. It's pretty uncommon for them not to, but it's not impossible either. That's why Mrs. Johnson was so shocked to find out she was an orphan, but they don't talk about the sad things as much as the good things. Like how there's no more medication and how Mrs. Johnson sneaks lots of good, informative books with her things, and when they talk she always brings delicious snacks. 

Some of the books are meant for smaller kids but Lili looks through them all anyways. The first one she starts with has a boy on the front hugging a black cat while smiling. The title is written above in shiny gold letters that says, My Big Black Cat. 

It describes the boy's thirteenth birthday on one page in a big joyous celebration and on the next, there's a serious scene where the boy's parents sit with him and talk to him about how now that he's thirteen, his powers will start to blossom. The helpful little image of a seed sprouting in his heart makes Lili smiles, her eyes watering every once in awhile so she has to stop reading. 

Reading on, she learns through the simplistic, easy text of the book, that every witch gets a familiar at thirteen. They come in different shapes, sizes, and colors, like tigers, dogs, and even butterflies. There's a small bit about how each familiar has an affinity for one of the four elements, but it doesn't seem to matter much as the text glosses over it.

They're a witch's soulmate (though not necessarily romantically), meant to be perfectly for them, and help them do great magic. Usually, at around sixteen, people's familiars can even turn into humans depending on how strong their bond with their partner is. 

She keeps reading and sees the boy get dressed in silly suits and odd clothes until he finds an outfit he likes, straightening his bow tie in his mirror as his parents explain to him that it's proper etiquette to look your very best when you meet your familiar. The little graphics on the page show a traditional pointed witch's hat and cloak as the must have garb on top of your finest duds in colorful little blurbs. Soon, the little protagonist is all dressed up and ready. 

She's nearing the end of the book now, pages thinning as the story divulges into a festival held on the night of a full moon in spring that shows what she recognizes as something like a fair. There's lights strung up and games in stalls that she's never seen before, but it looks fun and colorful. At the end of the night it shows everyone lining up in their different garb for the ceremony, taking pictures until it's time to get ready. It seems cute so far and friendly, like a party if anything. 

Then, the ceremony begins. The first person goes up to what seems to be a complex, huge ring of sigils and uses a knife to do a thin cut to their palm, just enough for a little blood. The protagonist seems scared by this, biting his fingernails anxiously, but then the person's familiar arrives on the next page in a splash of magic and the little wound is long forgotten. It's obvious the book is trying to soften the idea of the bloodletting, showing the protagonist proudly holding up his bandaged hand for his parents to see after he does his own ceremony and gets a comically fat cat. Lili isn’t quite sure what to think of that. 

The aftermath of the book is dedicated to showing the boy and the cat having fights about silly mundane things but eventually growing up and learning to love each other. At the very end, it shows the familiar turning into a human for the first time and the boy, now turned teenager, rushing to hug them. It's sweet, but leaves Lili with a lot of questions that she hopes Mrs. Johnson will be able to answer tomorrow.

She reads a few more books after that. One is titled, Your First Wand and another more instructional one is called, Flying Your Broom. One with a higher reading level is about different creatures, including fairies, which she spends hours reading and hardly gets a dent into its thick text. They're a little stack on her desk, but they make her tight room feel so much bigger somehow. 

She falls asleep with the one about mythical creatures propped open, her dreams filled with big cranky cats and of soaring through the air without even a broomstick.


	3. Chapter 3

When she wakes up in the morning she panics for a moment, only to see magical books strewn across her meager room. She picks up the one she fell asleep with off her chest and reverently strokes the cover before dog earring the page she left off on, pressing it to her cheek as she reminds herself that yes, it's still real. 

For the next two days she's in a state of bliss, pouring over her new books in secret and admittedly pestering Mrs. Johnson with questions whenever the opportunity presents itself. It's hard to resist the urge to pull her from her job and drown her with the endless questions she has, as they do seem more important than daily, menial tasks, but somehow she keeps a tight lid on all of her excitement. 

The knowledge is both a blessing and a curse at times. It's hard to even brush her teeth without smiling when she knows that there's witches, broomsticks, and wands out there that aren't contained to the pages of story books. Every knit she makes in a scarf, every tick of the clock on the wall, and every step she takes is suddenly redefined with a new all encompassing meaning that's a struggle to contain. 

She wants to tell the old ladies who gossip in the corners of rooms, the doctors with graying hair, the men who are all twitches and paranoid glances, even the catatonic people who sit quiet in the hallways, that it's been real the entire time. She feels like a songbird that's lost its voice, trying to explain through genuine smiles and glimmering eyes the song in her head. 

The stretch between their meetings seems longer and longer, though Lili knows Mrs. Johnson is always perfectly on time. When they meet up again, sitting on a bench outside not far from a path to the hospital, Lili feels like a whistling kettle finally being attended to. With the pleasantries aside, Lili digs in.

"So, about the book on familiars," she starts off, clicking a small lemon candy against her teeth and fiddling with the wrapper. Mrs. Johnson's always bringing in treats for her now, slipping them in her palms throughout the day. 

"My Big Black Cat?" Mrs. Johnson's has another one of those pained smiles as she unwinds the wrapper of her own strawberry candy. Lili refocuses her attention on her own wrapper while testing the candies strength between her teeth, a mixture of anxiety and excitement welling up inside of her. 

"Yes, that one. It was pretty easy to understand, but I have a few questions… if that's alright?" She's a little afraid she's going to stumble upon a taboo of some kind, as the books remind her of and mimic the ones she got on puberty years ago. Mrs. Johnson seems fine though, if not a bit troubled.

"Of course, go ahead," she says, popping the strawberry candy in her mouth. 

"So every witch gets a familiar?" 

"That's right. Well, mostly." Mrs. Johnson shifts, sighing as she folds her hands on top of her lap. "There's a very small chance that you could perform the ceremony and not get one, but that's exceptionally rare. So you shouldn't worry about it." 

"But the ceremony has to be done at thirteen, right?" The wrapper she's fiddling with finally tears down the middle and at the same time, she bites down on her candy. A sweet lemon syrup fills one side of her mouth, oozing like an open wound.

"Technically, you could do it at any age." Mrs. Johnson shifts towards her a bit then, her peach smile comforting yet bittersweet. "But most witches consider it... distasteful if you wait longer than that." She tucks a stray thick curl behind her ear, looking away for a moment before turning back.

"Why?" Is her immediate response. 

"Well, part of the ceremony in itself is dressing your best to make a good first impression for your familiar, but it's also a display of respect. As in, you look your best and you're on time, because otherwise it would look like you don't care. After awhile, your familiar may possibly begin to feel... neglected." Her lips purse and eyebrows furrow sympathetically as she catches Lili's eye.

There’s a quiet moment where Lili is flickering around the corpse of the candy in her mouth, tongue digging into the indention she made with her teeth as she thinks. Learning anything about magic is exciting, but it’s bittersweet when she’s essentially an outcast. Orphan, familiar-less, wand-less, everything-less. 

"It's okay. You couldn't have..." Mrs. Johnson shakes her head, biting her bottom lip for a second. "You didn't know. It's not your fault. It's just something you'll have to talk about and grow past with your familiar." Seeing Lili frown and turn away, she scoots in a bit closer and curls her in close with a supportive arm around her shoulder. 

Giving a heart heavy sigh, she says, "Lili this is all still so new to you. There's no way you could have known, so I don't want you to blame yourself for something that you can’t control." She rubs a hand up and down the length of Lili's arm soothingly but hard enough to ground her. 

"Your familiar will understand and even if you have a slow start, I know you'll be able to catch up. I've only known you a few days and I can see the beginnings of an absolutely exceptional witch." She studies the Lili's reaction, but she can't see anything from behind the curtain of her long, long hair. There's a moment of silence where she can see her stiffen and she almost thinks that there's going to be tears again. 

"Thank you. I'm going to do my best," Lili's voice is solid, resolve peeling off of it in waves. She's okay. Mrs. Johnson can feel the weight of her words and the solidity resting on her own bones. For such a frail girl, she’s turning out to be surprisingly strong. 

Her smile, hidden from Lili, is something tender. Retracting her arm from her side, she brings them to her lap. 

"Would you like to meet my familiar?" It's a much needed change of pace. Lili, with her infinite curiosity for magic, perks up like a flower tilting toward the sun after a spot of silence.  
"They're here now?" Lili asks, turning her head a fraction and then all at once to look at her. Mrs. Johnson nods and Lili pauses, thinking, before looking around. Her eyes go to the most obvious first, as most younger witch's do.

"One of those?" Lili gestures, nodding slightly toward one of the large looming tree’s in the courtyard not too far from them. There's three of four birds bouncing around a bird feeder hanging from one of the tree's branches.

"Nope. Not a bird." 

Giving a short hum in response, Lili thinks while looking around. Mrs. Johnson can almost hear the cogs in her head turning. "Do you want me to tell you?" 

"No..." Lili chews the last piece of candy in her mouth, swallowing it before speaking. "Oh, is it Mr. Tom?" Mrs. Johnson nearly laughs, thinking of the fat orange tabby that lives on the hospital’s property that on occasion tries and fails to catch the birds. 

"Mr. Tom has been here longer than I have," she chuckles and continues, "I'll give you a hint though. She's on me right now." That has Lili really looking at her, eyes going from the top of her head down to her shoes and back up again. She looks stumped, but pleased with their game too. 

"I don't see anything though? Or I guess I should say I don’t see her." Lili says while staring intently at the buttons of her nursing uniform, trying not to miss a single detail. She's close at least. 

"Are you sure?" It's then that she lifts a hand to fiddle with one of her red, ladybug earrings. Lili looks confused for a moment, face screwed up in thought before her jaw drops. Mrs. Johnson laughs, grinning, as her other "earring" flutters off of her ear and leaves behind the real earring, a tiny gold ball. 

"Oh my," Lili gasps quietly, eyes lighting up and hands opening as Mrs. Johnson's familiar flies onto them. She lands perfectly on the tip of her thumb, the red of her shell glittering just like a gem in the light. "She's so beautiful." Lili really does look starstruck, starring intently at her familiar. 

"Thank you. Her name is Mel." Lili is quiet for long enough that Mrs. Johnson takes it upon herself to fill in the silence, staring at the two interacting as she does so. "She doesn't look like that normally, it's just an enchantment. Don't worry about squishing her either. Because she's a familiar she's stronger than most bugs." Mel has gone from Lili's thumb to the back of her hand, fluttering her wings occasionally like the little show off she is. 

"And she can turn into a human?" Mel flies over to Lili's other hand, turning in little circles before flying up and landing on Mrs. Johnson’s cheek. She's so used to it by now she doesn't so much as blink, but she can't help a smile.

"She could do it right now, but I'm pretty sure she'd get into at least a little trouble for being naked," Mrs. Johnson snorts, amused. Her face straightens though when she sees Lili's cheeks coloring though.

"Naked?" she chirps, back straightening with the single word. 

"You thought-?" Mrs. Johnson leans forwards a little bit and like a seesaw, Lili shifts backwards. 

"I mean, the book, didn't mention..." Lili's hiding behind her thick messy hair again, holding onto it like a child behind their mother's skirt. Mrs. Johnson wants not to laugh, but Mel's wings are fluttering on her skin and she can feel her own laughter so easily between their bond, that she does anyways. Lili looks something between mortified and a little peeved and it just spurs her on even more.


	4. Chapter 4

In witch orphanages the stay for a child is maybe, maximum two years, and that's for particularly rowdy children who really push their limits. Usually though there's about a six month to a year wait for any given child who's come to the unfortunate circumstance of being an orphan. 

Part of the reason why witch children are so sparse to begin with is because of the stigma that follows parents that give away their children; witches love to grow great, huge covens and raise children collectively rather than just by a couple. In traditional families, abandoning a child is seen disgraceful as it could have meant another potentially powerful member of their group. There's power in numbers, sure, but Basch isn't sure how relevant the saying is anymore now that they're not in the dark ages anymore. 

The reason why children are adopted so quickly is because of how common it is for a witch to partner with their familiar, procreation being impossible between the two. Along with the couples who want to adopt for other reasons, the demand is a lot higher than the output. It's all pretty simple when he takes a step back and thinks about it logically.

Hell, he should be glad that the few kids who are orphans get adopted quickly, but whenever he thinks about how they've been waiting to adopt for two and a half years, he feels like he needs a drink. He's overheard would be parents in kid friendly waiting rooms compare their waiting times like it's comparing war wounds, going from anywhere from two to five years. When he even considers another year of this mindless waiting, of the nursery being empty and Roderich sulking when he thinks he isn't looking, he thinks he might go mad. To wait another three would be utterly despairing.

It's a long time to wait, but he understands. It's a big decision to raise a child and social workers have to try and find the best fit for children, regardless of how long any couple has been waiting. They're no exception certainly and it doesn't help that their not the perfect picturesque ideal of a traditional witch family, the only two people living in their colossal house being them. 

Every time they visit with their caseworker she politely wrinkles a nose at the fact, even though Basch has a more than decent and steady job at a high school teaching and Roderich is an award winning pianist in both the human and witch world. The idea that they're getting shoved on the back burner makes Basch want to rip the woman's pompous expression right off her face, but he'll be damned if he ruins their chances any more than they already are. 

So when their social worker seldom calls, it's something of an event. 

He's still just waking up, sinking onto the couch with a cup of coffee, donut, and the daily newspaper hooked underneath his arm when the telephone rings. It's a black rickety thing that's been in his family for generations, nearly shaking the end table across the room where it sits. Not only the jarring sound but the rarity of the call itself startles him, making his coffee jump in its cup. When the sun is still just peaking out from it's hiding place it feels like only Roderich and him would be sane enough to be up this early on a weekend, so he can’t imagine who’d be calling.

With perfect timing Roderich walks in from the kitchen and goes to answer the telephone, his own coffee in hand and hair perfectly styled from his earlier shower. Roderich, being a nightingale, wakes up with the sun everyday without fail and Basch has of course been looped into the routine over the years. With how long they've been together he's learned to love certain things about waking up early, like watching Roderich go from sleep mused to his prim and pretty self and seeing how many drowsy morning kisses he can goad his husband into.

He watches as Roderich picks up the phone and answers it, setting aside his newspaper and dunking his donut into his coffee before biting into it. With a pinky he picks out the sleep from his eyes, chewing his treat slowly. He's nowhere near the amount of consciousness that his husband is, cheek still warm from the numbing press of his pillow. 

"Hello, you've reached the Zwingli household." They answer formally more often than not with how many business calls they each get. Taking a short sip of his coffee he watches as Roderich turns towards a mirror across the room, setting aside his coffee before straightening out his shirt, as if they'll be going somewhere other than their house today. He looks absentminded as he does it and Basch unabashedly ogles his husband. 

Then, he sees it. Roderich brings his hand up to his mouth, the corner of his eyes crinkling and cheeks dimpling with his smile. It has Basch perking up immediately, feeling Roderich's rush of exhilaration through their bond as he sits up in his seat and puts down his coffee. He's looking at him expectantly now, starring as he watches Roderich cradle the phone like it's something precious.   
"Can you hold for just one second please?" Roderich's voice is polite as usual, but it's tinged with that saccharine sweetness that clues Basch in immediately. He doesn't want to get his hopes up, but he can practically feel Roderich's heart fluttering in their bond, his excitement pouring off of him in waves. The urge to do something, anything, is so strong is has him getting up and crossing the room. 

"Thank you," Roderich chirps, sliding the receiver of the phone down to his chest with both hands while turning towards Basch, "it's Linnett, she wants to talk with us about a very important opportunity in person," he says its all in a single woosh of breath, tears beginning to well up in the corners of his eyes. It makes Basch breathless, clutching at his own chest and Roderich's arm as his knees go weak. A German curse slips past his lips and he's full on grinning when he looks back up at his husband.

"Yes! Yes, say yes," Basch whispers are an attempt at hushed but maybe a little too loud anyways. This time Roderich uses the phone on the ear closest to him, leaning down and tilting it so he can hear their caseworker talk. 

"Yes, we'd love to talk as soon as possible. When can we come in?" Roderich asks, his voice warbling a little at the ends. It has Basch's heart squeezing so hard it hurts, finding one of his free hands and threading their fingers together tight enough his knuckles go white. 

"Well," Linnett, their million year old caseworker with a voice that sounds like it's been warped through an old black and white T.V. even manages a little enthusiasm for them, "we'd like you here as soon as possible. When's a good time for you?" Roderich squeezes his hand so tight Basch can nearly feel his bones clip against each other, the both of them succumbing to the wave of realization that it might be finally happening. It takes a moment for Roderich to respond, mouth open and head spinning. 

"I uhm - now?" he asks, partly to Linnett and partly to Basch who's nodding, mouthing the words, yes, silently. They hear Linnett give a wheezy crackly laugh and Basch is trying to remind himself that they might not like the kid, that the kid might not take a liking to them, that they still don't know so much. 

"Sure. How long is it going to take you to get here?" The answer has the both of them quivering, considering the time they'll need to get ready and look presentable and the drive over…

"About an hour," Roderich replies slowly, tying up all the things they have to do into a tight near bundle. For some reason it still doesn't feel real, like they're negotiating a deal that's so good it's almost criminal that they're walking away with it. There's some shuffling, the clicking of a typewriter in the background. 

"Alright, see you in an hour then. Remember to ask for me at the desk and they'll send you my way," Linnett croaks, sighing like the sun shines out of her ass. Normally Basch would complain about it, but right now the sun does kind of shine out her ass. 

"Thank you, we'll see you soon!" She hangs up before Roderich finishes but they could care less, immediately squeezing each other into a bone crushing hug and dousing each other in several quick giddy kisses before they start to race around the house to get ready. 

-

In less than an hour later Basch and Roderich are sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chairs in Linnett's office, in the midst of an intense conversation while she's gone getting papers or something of the like. 

"I'm just saying, this might not be it." Basch is holding Roderich's hand gently and speaking to him maybe not just for his sake but also his own. Roderich’s calmed down since they left the house, tears dried up and his regal demeanor back, but they're both still considerably shaken up. Every time they seem to calm down it's like someone's flipped them upside down again, their bond fluctuating with such brilliant spikes of euphoria that he gets goosebumps. 

"I know. I just." Roderich's smile makes him want to kiss the snot out of him, but he'd rather not give Linnett the impression that they have no self control. Instead he squeezes Roderich's hand softly and just like he's pushed a button, Roderich is gushing again. 

"Do you think it's a girl?" Roderich spouts, voice all sticky with sentiment and love. They've gone over it numerous times and have settled that they couldn't really care less what their child's gender is, but it seems like one of those cliches that they can't resist taking part of. Basch sighs something that's full of heart, smiling and shaking his head. 

"I don't know, but I feel like they're going to try a boy this time." The last time they had met with a little girl that hadn't taken a liking to either of them. Whenever Basch tried to talk to her she seemed nearly ready to burst into tears. Roderich, although better with her, wasn't very successful either. They're both hoping for something better than their last disheartening attempt.

Roderich look like he's about to say something, but he's cut off by Linnett cranking open the door and filling the room with the smell of heavy perfume trying to mask cigarette smoke. Both of their noses wrinkle, but they keep their judgments to their selves.

"Alright, so I called you two into day specially." She pauses to sit, huffing as she does. Before continuing she smiles with hardness around the edges, folding her hands on top of a very slim manila folder. "I know you're more interested in adopting a younger child, but I want you to hear me out on this. I feel like you two could be a very good fit for this child." She eyes the both of them from behind her lime green glasses, blue eyeshadow smeared across her lids like chalk. 

"How old are they?" Basch asks, but Linnett puts up a singular wrinkled hand in response. 

"Let me explain first and then we'll get into the details. I want you to hear everything and then decide if you'd like to meet with her," she looks tired as she speaks, but the both of them disregard her weariness at the mention of gender - a girl. A girl. Roderich squeezes his hand and he squeezes back. They both say nod and say nothing, but in between the silence there's the low thrum of their curiosity and excitement. 

"I’m going to be blunt with this. A week ago, we got a call from a police station a little down south from here about a girl in a human hospital for the mentally ill." She stops there for a moment, as if letting the weight of the words settle and just like that, they do. Basch feels his heart plummet into the pit of his stomach with the weight of reality.

It becomes strikingly apparent why they’re here all of the sudden. She's asked them because nobody else would take her. He can feel Roderich's sadness like a heavy coat over his own shoulders. With no response, she continues. 

"Reportedly, she's been in the human foster care system her entire life and only recently has been staying at the hospital. She was found unintentionally by a witch who'd been working as a nurse there and she's been relocated to one of our nearby homes after some investigation." Linnett pauses to unclasp her hands, grabbing the small manila folder and tapping it once, twice on the desk, before handing it towards them. There's a small pause before Roderich reaches to take it. In comparison to the last child they saw, her folder is dwarfed in size. 

"She's been to a couple of foster homes throughout the years and she’s been reported as violent." Linnett looks reluctant to admit it and it admittedly catches their attention. Roderich again, beats him to the punch.

"What did she do?" His voice isn't judging so much as it is open. It still has that professional edge that Roderich always seems to carry with him though, which Basch is glad for. His temper (although rarely anymore) can get the best of him on occasion. 

"In one incident she's pushed two boys twice her size down a flight of stairs which resulted in a broken arm and leg. In another, she pushed a boy hard enough that he broke an arm and a collarbone. Apparently he was just trying to stop her from stealing from a teacher at that time." She's taken to fiddling with her fingers, rubbing them over her green slick nail polish while she stares them down. Basch has known enough people with addictions to recognize that she's itching for another smoke already. 

"Do you know what she was trying to steal?" Basch, as a teacher himself, is disheartened by the information. But it's widespread knowledge that witch children can cause curious things to happen, their magic tinted with an innocence so pure that it attracts the magic in others. 

"The human reports say a large lunar moth, but she swears that it was a large lunar fairy," her tone sweetens at the end, eyes lifting at the corners, and through their bond Basch can feel their relief seep from both ends. 

"What about the first incident?" he asks at the same moment Roderich frees his hand to open the manila folder, leaning in a bit closer so they can both see the contents. The first page is dedicated to her time in foster care facilities, the second to her record, the third her hospitalization, and then some standard print outs from their facility that most likely come with every child's folder. 

"She and the human reports match to say that it was an accident, but the report has an additional note on how she was being bullied at school and at home. She mentioned this, but only very briefly." They're towards the end of her folder now, eyes skimming past her name a hundred times. Lili Vogel, Lili Vogel, Lili Vogel.

Finally, they flip open to the back of the manila folder, the both of them pausing when seeing a handful of pictures delicately paper clipped to the back. The first one at the top is of her, long blonde hair in two thick braids that nearly reach her waist. She seems thin, unsightly in her white hospital issued clothes that only seem to further bring out her sallow complexion. But she's smiling something wide and genuine, green eyes glimmering as she stands a little awkwardly in front of the camera. It's obvious someone's tried making her laugh.

Behind her is an entire wall pasted with what one can assume is her own drawings. They're by no means skillful but the color they add to the room seems precious, bits of yellow wall popping out from between the pages. 

"The first one was taken when they found her." Linnett has shifted, elbow propped up on her desk and chin leaning into her hand. "She enjoys knitting, reading, and being outside, but she's mostly interested in learning more about magic. She did the art in the first picture there." The next picture is of her sitting at a bright red desk, stacks of books on top of it. She looks healthier, legs crossed in a bright blue dress ending just at her knees. In the next she looks even happier, sitting on an old swing set in what seems to be a courtyard. Although seeing her progression is charming, there’s still something on the both of their minds. 

"How old is Lili?" Basch's voice is steadier than how he feels, his insides clenching and unclenching as he looks at her pictures. There's something about her that radiates so much sweetness that it's hard for him to imagine her going through so much. Being pushed from home to home, never feeling welcome anywhere, being excluded from humans and witches at the same time. It's not the first time either of them has heard of something like this happening, but to be put on the spot, as potential parents…

"She just turned fifteen," Linnett says after a small silence, watching them flip through the pictures. Both of their heads snap up at this and the shock must be evident in their faces, because she looks older than they've ever seen her, the bags beneath her eyes prominent and dark despite her makeup and gaudy glasses. 

"No familiar, no wand, no schooling, doesn't even know how to ride a broomstick." A chill goes through the room then, the cold filling their lungs and numbing them. She regards them for a few seconds, before getting up in a gust of badly concealed cigarette smoke. "I'm going to leave you to talk for a few minutes. When you're done just crack the door open and I'll be in in a few." Her heels click on the way out, deafening. The door creaks open and closes with a soft, definite click. 

With the sound, Basch is turning to look towards Roderich immediately. All he can feel through their bond is his confusion and the shock, like rolling waves beneath a stormy sky. His face reveals less, only giving away the pained look in his eyes. 

"She's fifteen," Roderich all but whispers, hand sweeping out and gesturing to the mania folder. She's nothing like either of them were expecting; they came in thinking they'd be be getting ready to meet with someone ten years younger, a child who'd at least would be brought up in magic.

But there's still something stubborn, something that's pushing at the very edges of their bond to make way to the center. There's an undeniable fondness that's eating at the both of them that’s being fed when their fingers gloss over her features. Leafing through to another picture, they pause at one that's enchanted to move, showing her braiding her long hair by the light of a window. 

"We can't just do this because we feel sorry for her," Basch mumbles, dragging the picture of her in her hospital clothes a little closer to Roderich. He picks up the picture gently by the edge, holding it a little closer to see the finer details.

"You're right. We could say no to this. We're not obligated and we were expecting someone much younger," Roderich's musing now, pressing his thumb up against the corner of his bottom lip to chew at it in a way that Basch would normally discourage, if not for circumstance. 

"They probably picked us because of how much attention she'll need. In a bigger family, she might get pushed to the side..." Basch is grabbing some of the papers now, looking over the different foster homes that she'd been too and the description of her personality. It's written in an honest and truthful way, which he can appreciate. 

"And because you're a teacher, Basch. There's a lot of potential for things to go wrong once she gets her wand and she's going to need supervision. A tutor too, to catch up on school most likely. Not everyone can afford that kind of money or time," Roderich points out, the both of them already drawing out plans and the outline in their heads. They spend what feels like forever talking about it; how Basch would need to take time off of work and how they'd have to redecorate the room set out for her. All of it seems possible, perfectly within their limits. Neither of them are alien to working with teenagers either, with how they spend so much time working together at the high school. Still, it comes down to a simple question.

"Do we really want to do this?" Roderich asks after they've mapped out everything, explored every possibility and loose end. Wordlessly, Basch is flipping towards the back of the folder again, looking over her photos. He sighs, something heavy and full, that nurturing feeling manifesting deep in the center of their bond again. He thinks of how many times they’ve caught each other staring into the nursery, eyes tracing the edge of the crib. 

"I want to meet her." The words honestly don't surprise him. He knew since he saw her picture, that warm paternal feeling making his throat close up. "We've always wanted more than one anyways. We could always adopt twice…" Basch turns and looks to his husband, but he gets that rush of relief through their bond before he even says anything.

In a rare moment of physical affection outside of their home, Roderich leans forwards and takes his hand, pressing his cheek against Basch's shoulder. "I want to meet her too," he murmurs, smiling. 

They leave the door wide open.


	5. Chapter 5

When she leaves the hospital she's prepared for the ritual of packing, having gone through the process what seems like a million times before. She packs up her belongings easily with the help of a new witch social worker (not much different from the usual if she’s being honest) and changes into a fresh set of clothes that were brought for her. It feels good to be in something other than the drab hospital white for a change. 

The new foster home is only a train ride away out into the lush countryside. They travel by car together for what feels like hours, passing by prairies and lush forests until the number of houses trickle down to none for what feels like a long time. When they finally pull up to the house she’s woken up from her sleep by her social worker, cheek red and numb from being pressed to the car window. 

They slide past menacing iron gates and can see kids peaking out from behind polished windows when they walk down the path to the house. At first sight the place is intimidating, all Gothic architecture and built like something she'd recognize as the setting of any classic horror story. But the little old red cheeked woman who answers the huge wooden doors immediately scoots them inside from the cold and offers some warm drinks to keep them toasty. 

The place is huge, all cobblestone with huge archways and foreboding stairs, but it's softened by the comfort and heart in the decor. There's flowers in what feels like every room and colorful pictures hanging everywhere on the walls. Children's laughter ring from upstairs and from down hallways and from somewhere there's a radio playing tunes and a TV scratching out the sounds of a soap opera. Toys are hidden everywhere, but for a foster home a level of tidy that’s more than acceptable.

Esther’s familiar, Georgina, is also a cornerstone of the home as much as Esther herself is. Georgina’s takes the form of a fat basset hound with red bleary eyes with ears so long that they drag on the ground when she walks and everyone absolutely loves her. Even Lili, who’s only just met her, drops to her knees at the sight of her long tail whipping back and forth. 

Lili fits in nicely among everyone, spending most of her time in the courtyard of the huge building and helping out when Esther, the little old woman who runs the place, lets her. She's the oldest one there out of all of the children which gives her the chance to once again flex her skills at being an older sister figure to a horde of little cute gremlins. It seems that Georgina needs all the help she can get with the toddlers and other little ones who pull on her floppy ears and yank too hard on her tail. 

Her safe haven, or room, is situated on the ground floor just a door down from Esther's. It's easily the most spacious room she's ever had to herself, with large open windows that open up to the beautiful courtyard and polished hardwood floors. It's lavishly decorated with it's own vanity, king sized bed, desk, and closet. It's a little dusty, the bed is lumpy, and the desk has scratches on it's surface from use, but it feels like somewhere a princess would stay anyways.

Esther is kind in answering any and all of her questions regarding magic, even showing her a few simple spells from time to time. Lili tries not to gawk too much the first time she sees her control the stove from across the room with a flick of her wand while her arms filled with a crying toddler. Ever day it feels like she's learning something new, even if she's doing things mundane as the laundry or helping Esther with cleaning the various messes and spills that are conjured within seconds here.

For such a large place with so many rooms though, there aren't nearly enough kids to fill it. No one even has rooms on the second floor, rather it's just a place the children like to play. Potential parents seem to come in and out of the place often enough that everything feels sort of temporary, like each child has a future waiting for them at the press of their fingers. 

It's so nice there that Lili almost doesn't mind the idea of her stay becoming permanent so she can help Esther and Georgina around the house, but every time there's a knock at the front door, she can't help but hope that it's finally going to be for her. Even after all of these years, the magic inside of her chest is still blooming, gripping the iron edges of it's cage and steeling itself.

-

It's quiet here, the sun only beginning to trudge up from behind the snowy landscape and cast warmth and new wetness onto the hills. He shakes off the snow from where he sits, though it doesn't bother him much anymore. He's long since grown used to the frigid bite of mountains and even the chill of the sea air. It's like every morning before it, so he shouldn't feel anything different. Nothing is new. 

But he feels different anyways, an odd trickle of warmth starting in his core and cracking the ice that he's built up inside of himself for so long. He's not a stranger to this pull, but it still feels fresh every time. He supposes ice never cracks the same way. 

He refuses to let his enthusiasm go on for too long though, chewing it out himself. 

In the distance, thunder crackles. 

-

A few days after she moves into the new foster home she finds herself sitting in the courtyard again, a book open on her lap as she lays comfortably on a padded, swinging bench. She's got a blanket curled around herself to keep warm against spring's chill and it'd be more than sufficient to say that she's perfectly cozy. Most of the younger kids are inside and the ones that are out seem satisfied quietly playing among each other, paying her no attention. It's the most relaxed she's been in a long time, her eyes lazily and slowly reading a book on different varieties of mushrooms.

There's a small stack of books next to her still warm cup of tea that Esther gave her specifically, a thin slice of lemon swirling around at the top. It's enchanted, blue runes decorating the bottom of the cup, to keep the liquids inside of it warm and she's planning to crack open another book and study the sigils once she downs her cup. With the expansive library Esther has it seems like it'd be a waste not to look into it, so she reserves part of her day specifically towards reading. Usually after she's done exploring the many magical oddities of the house, such as the swings in the courtyard that push themselves.

Somewhere along the lines of her reading about glowing mushrooms and drowsing off thoughts muddled all together, she sees Esther enter the courtyard with two men that she's never seen before. 

One of them is taller than Esther, his brown hair swept back in a stylish fashion and a set of glasses perched snugly on his nose. His hands are behind his back clutching his arms in a way that seems almost military if it weren't for how much he suited the pose. The blonde man next to him is shorter than even Esther, his pose more casual as he rubs his hands together and listens intently to their conversation

Esther's expression, as usual, gives a lot away. She seems a little strung out but she's talking passionately, her hands flying out and gesturing wildly as she speaks just like when she talks to the younger kids here. It must be a hard habit to break, as she does it to even Lili sometimes. But the two men regard her seriously, kindly even, and her motions stop completely when the smaller blonde man gestures to the other man and himself, saying something that seems to put her at ease. Some of the smaller kids have seemed to take notice of this exchange, some pulled closer by it and latching onto Esther's dress and others fleeing from the courtyard to hide away in the house. 

Lili's about to turn back to her book and ignore the couple, fully expecting them to start crouching down and talk to one of the children near Esther's feet, until they start walking in her direction. She does a double take and then looks behind her seat, looking for any of the little ones that might still be hiding but finds herself alone in this corner of the courtyard. A quick awkward glance in the couples direction and she can tell they’re still walking towards her, Esther watching them from afar with a little one balanced on her hip. When she catches Lili's eyes, she gives a thumbs up, the child on her hip mimicking her actions. 

It sparks the memory of Esther explaining to numerous little ones that she'd always be there when they'd meet a grown up for the first time, just in case they needed help or wanted to get out of a situation. She never thought the rule would apply to her, her cheeks flushing pink as she tries and recalls everything she's ever been taught about interacting with potential parents. 

It's not like they were ever taught to sell themselves, but foster parents did iron out a few ideas in their mind. Smile, be respectful, be polite, talk about yourself but not too much... She's juggling the ideas around in her head, folding her blanket on top of her lap and putting aside her book, nervously pulling one of her long braids to her and faking interest in it. As they get closer Lili can hear fall leaves crunching beneath their pointed shoes, her mind skittering like a mouse rushing from a broom. 

"Hello there." Lili looks up at the blonde man who had spoken, her eyes flickering briefly towards the brown haired man, her heart beating audibly in her chest. They're both smiling politely, which reflexively makes her smile too, though she feels dumb even doing just that. 

"Hi," she all but chirps, flattening the blanket on her thighs and while studying the two of them. It’s easier to take in their smaller details, like the purple color of Roderich’s glasses, than to stare at them directly.

"I'm Basch Zwingli and this is my husband, Roderich. Do you mind if we talk with you for awhile?" his voice isn't rough nor does it make Lili feel like a child, but it does feel kind. Maybe a little stiff. Somehow, it soothes some of her anxieties.

"I'm Lili Vogel, it’s very nice to meet you - and no, I wouldn't mind at all." 

-

The first time that they meet they stay the entirety of the afternoon to talk with her, only leaving when it gets dark out and pausing in conversation when Esther (all knowing looks and sweetness that makes them collectively go quiet with embarrassment) checks in to give them sandwiches and other kinds of treats every once in awhile. Once it's apparent that Lili's fine though, she only pops up in the courtyard every once in awhile to give her little waves and smiles when she thinks Basch and Roderich aren't looking. 

It starts off awkward at first, her voice like a rusted pipe that hasn't been flushed with water in years, so her voice is bit jumbled, bubbling and spurting like an uneven stream. Basch and Roderich, oddly enough, seem the same way at times though they're decidedly more well put together than her. Mostly they just seem like they're treading lightly at first, eyeing her for confusion when they talk more in depth about magical practices and explaining thoroughly when she asks questions. It's kind of cute, seeing them struggle to explain some of the easier, more basic concepts of magic that they obviously don't have to explain often; it'd be similar to asking a dog why it barks. 

She finds out that Basch is a teacher, his subjects being Karzhu (Goblin language, Basch explains) and enchantments which seems like something right out of her storybooks. Roderich on the other hand is a professional pianist, though he often attends with Basch to work though he doesn't necessarily teach. They live not too far from here apparently, in what they describe as a huge house on an even bigger, windy cliff.

They don't ask her anything about her past which she's glad for, but they do ask her about several other questions about her hobbies and interests. They talk for sometime about instruments and if she'd ever play one, as to which she admits that she's always found the harp beautiful. She also admits that she has absolutely no sense of rhythm and has been told she’s tone death, which quickly churns Roderich’s excited smile into a sympathetic one. He's more interested it seems in her artistic side, including her art and knitting, while Basch asks more about her studies and more practical things.

In a moment of boldness she goes into a little story about how she used to pretend to make potions when she was smaller, using crushed leaves and flowers and whatever else she could find outside. She only regrets telling it until Basch does a breathy and badly concealed laugh through his nose and Roderich hides a smile behind his hand. The more they talk the more she loosens up, expressing her excitement on getting a wand, flying a broomstick, and even her more simple curiosities like simple witchy household appliances. 

Though they're more reserved and on the quiet side like herself, but they don't make for awkward conversation. Rather, she opens up more to help bridge the unsteady gap that they’re trying to connect, talking more and even asking questions from time to time. Basch, although a little rigid in his mannerisms, has a surprising softness to him. Roderich on the other hand is a gentlemen, though he seems a bit stuffy and likely a stickler for rules. 

Overall, she likes them. It's surprisingly uplifting to talk to them and the feeling is doubled whenever she sees that they're genuinely enjoying themselves too, laughing at the odd thing she says or squabbling with each other at random. At the end of the day she walks them to the door, Esther popping up from one of the many nooks and crannies of the house to send them off. 

"Would you mind us coming to see you again?" Roderich asks just as Esther is about to open the front door and lead them out. It gives Lili a little shock, the both of them smiling at her as if they hadn't just answered her childhood dreams of being whisked away to a home specially meant for her. It feels bittersweet somehow though, with how long she's waited for a family to be interested in her specifically. She swallows dryly and pushes down the tears for later, smiling back wide in a way that she hope voices her thank you. 

"Please, I'd love that," she answers, voice all rounded around the edges like she'd dipped them in sugar and sweetness. They look at her then like she's something precious, like she's still so young, as if the grasslands of her childhood hadn't already been poured over by concrete. To her though their eyes feel a lot like sidewalk chalk and making the best out of a bad thing.

They take their leave, Esther following them outside to talk over a few things. To watch them go she quickly moves to one of the Gothic windows to spy out at them, watching as Esther talks with them. They seem happy and all smiles and at one point they're all even chuckling together over something Roderich has said. Lili watches them until they get inside their pretty blue car, strapping in their seat belts. 

She freezes when Basch spots her looking from the window, unsure if he's really looking at her or not until he's smiling, pointing her out to Roderich who stops reversing out of the driveway to look. Embarrassed, she waves, watching them wave back with a tender, bruised heart. 

Later that night when she can't fall asleep she creeps into the kitchen, only to find Esther already brewing a cup of tea. Somehow, the older woman knows exactly what's keeping her up, pulling her in for an unexpected but deeply needed hug. She brushes her long blonde hair and hushes her just like the other children, letting her cry until her heart is content. 

She's sent off to bed with a red nose, bleary eyes, and a cup of honey sweetened tea that leaves her warm right down to her fingertips. 

-

After that, Basch and Roderich visit regularly at least twice a week. Each time they visit, the idea that it'll be her last day there grows stronger and stronger. 

One evening is spent playing on Esther's old and surprisingly still in tune piano, where Roderich patiently shows her how to do some scales as they all talk. It's a lot harder than she ever thought it would be but she ends up laughing a lot anyways, Basch making a quip every once in awhile to encourage her. Roderich even leaves behind a few simple notes and papers for her to practice and she makes sure to show him her progress every time he visits. 

Another afternoon Basch brings some some simple beginners flashcards for Karzhu and Merani, the language of goblins and merfolk respectively. They have some very rough but still some good, fluent conversation in Karzhu, but it has her laughing when Basch pronounces some of the odder, more gargly and harder to say words. 

She eggs him on into saying a few words in Merani, which is decidedly a lot harder than Karzhu. He blushes when he does it, laughing through speech when Lili and Roderich both smile at him like dopes. It sounds like a series of sharp clicks and high melodic noises, but Basch explains that it's properly done underwater and urges her to try some of the words sometime, maybe in the bath. 

On a day where she gets to pick what they'll do, she ends up dragging out one of the only table top games that she recognizes from the buildings crowded hall closet. Not all of the pieces are there with how many kids have tampered with the game, so they have to make due and use a few odd makeshift items, but the game is fun over all. Lili and Roderich end up ganging up on Basch, who amazingly stands on his own somehow. They don't even finish but Lili could care less about that when she already feels like she's won something bigger.

Most importantly through all of the games and the activities, they talk. She opens up about her past some, about friends she used to have and people she used to know and sometimes even the more delicate subjects. When she talks about her magical experiences they offer sincere input about the creatures, but she never tells them about anything like the broken bones or the bullies. In return she learns simple things about them, like how Roderich can be quite messy despite his clean appearance and how Basch can be intensely frugal despite both of their hefty earnings. 

On one memorable occasion she asks them about their relationship and if it was always like this, them being in so in love, which resulted in an amusing amount of blushing on both ends. Basch looked more flustered than Lili had ever seen him and Roderich equally so, but he still managed to choke out some answers. 

"We... We didn't always get along as well as we could have at first," Roderich admits as Basch carefully cracks an egg into a clear cup, checking for eggshells before doing another. The idea of baking was Esther's idea and Lili was more than entertained by the idea with how both Roderich and Basch admitted that they both cook mainly by magic. 

"You didn't like each other?" Lili asks honestly, eyeing Basch as he skirts away from her stare. She's managed to convince the both of them into the spare frilly aprons Esther owns, but she never thought they'd actually get messy; after Roderich turned on the blender without the cap on, she was glad she suited the both of them up. Now, only a fraction of them was stained with dark chocolate gunk. 

"We never hated each other, it just took some time for us to... No I mean, for me to..." Roderich seems sad for a moment, eyes lowering to the floor in a distant way. Basch pauses then too, stopping his thorough mixing.

"Relationships just take time... Getting to know your familiar will take time. We always loved each other though, no matter what was happening," Basch says quietly, slowly folding and stirring the cake mix with sudden care. His face is hidden from view but when she looks at Roderich he's so clearly taken with adoration that Lili nearly goes pink herself, feeling as though she's looking in on something private and not meant for her eyes. There's more there than they're telling after all.

The cake comes out somehow perfectly, even with all of their mistakes that evening. 

-

The only time that they couldn't manage to come, Lili was in what could only be called a mood for the entire evening, so much so that Esther had to convince her to take some time for herself. She ended up being convinced into taking a luxurious bubble bath in Esther's personal tub that evening, soothed by her promises and fragrant oils that they'd probably call and that an accident probably happened. Still, Lili couldn't help but dread that they'd forgotten her or that something awful had happened. It was stupid to be so upset, childish even, but the feelings still stayed with her. 

As it turned out, Esther was right, as usual. After her bath sometime nearing eight when most of the little ones had been rushed off to bed, the telephone went off and sure enough, Basch's voice was pouring through the tinny speakers. 

"Lili," he huffed, voice ragged, "I'm sorry we couldn't make it today. We had ordered some furniture awhile ago and we had forget it was coming in today, it's just really terrible timing. There was just a lot of stuff with the movers and well... I'm - we're both sorry about this." Her relief is palpable, spreading through her like aloe on an achy sunburn. Her eyes are starting to burn and she's suddenly relieved that Esther's back is turned towards her as she works on cleaning the dishes in the kitchen, whistling a tune. 

"It's okay, it's not really a big deal." She shakes her head and stares up at the high arching ceiling above her, trying to clear the tears from her eyes. She feels even more stupid now, for being upset in the first place. "I'm just glad the two of you are alright." Lili's pressing her lips together tight, swallowing hard and accidentally letting out a puff of hot air into the receiver. There's a beat of silence.

"It was a big deal. Are you okay?" Basch says in one of his rare soft moments and she tries not to crumble under the amount of care in his voice. Her eyes blur to the point that the wall in front of her is just a heap of colors, the first scalding tear running down her cheek. 

"I'm fi-ne," her voice cracks and she nearly wants to stomp on her own toes in frustration, shaking her head and rubbing at tear itchy cheeks. If Esther's noticed something, she's electing to ignore it. 

"You don't have to lie to me, it's okay," Basch's voice is even more tender now and it just rips her up more, his gentleness eating her up like she's been put through a shredder. 

"I'm fine though, I am, I was just," she pauses, holding back the hiccup that's building in her chest to just a squeak, "worried. Really worried." She can't tell him that she's afraid they'd left her too, that she was fearing that the penny finally dropped. Her guilt is even heavier now that he's called, but mostly, she feels undeserving of their attention in the first place. If anything, she thinks, she should be thankful for what she's been given, not crying about it. 

"Lili..." Basch's voice is heavy, unsaid words hanging in the silence. "We're both really sorry. We'll make it up to you, okay?" 

"You don't have to - " Basch cuts off her wobbly voice, with a caring sternness that leaves no room for discussion. 

"We do, because we care about you. Okay?" One part of her wants to argue and another part of her is soothed by his voice, her fears being put to rest by his guidance. A small part of her offers that maybe it was okay for her to be upset after all.

"Okay," she nearly whispers, sniffling and giving up, letting the tears run freely down her face onto the rug below. There's another rung of silence where she can imagine Basch squirming, trying to find the right thing to say during a time like this. During this silence she’s eased by Georgina padding up to her with her fat heavy paws, stopping only to plop down by her side and nose at her legs until she’s petted. 

"We'll see you next Tuesday, just like normal. Promise." It makes her give a lukewarm smile hearing him say that. Basch has ranted a long time before about how you shouldn't ever promise something, but just do it, as he occasionally does when he gets heated up about things. So it's sweet, to see him folding over like this for her. 

"Promise," she says, looking down into Georgina’s big soulful eyes. Even she seems to be hopeful. 

-

The next day Esther's called to the front door by someone's knocking, which is nothing out of the usual as parents are always coming back and forth to visit kids. She's pouring some juice for one of the younger kids when it happens, only taken away when Esther calls for her in with a sing song voice. The merriness of it captures the attention of a few of the little ones and soon, there's a little herd of them crowding the hallway that Lili has to scoot by.

Once she hears their little ooh's and ahh's her curiousity perks, a question on the tip of her tongue when she swings into the hallway. Immediately the question melts in her mouth, leaving behind an after taste of sweetness that makes her face light up in a smile. Esther holds not one, but two bouquets. 

One is extravagant, bursting with striking big blue flowers and little white ones while the other is simpler and tinier, little white flowers delicately growing along long green stems like bells. She recognizes both of them through her studies, being hydrangeas and lily of the valley respectively. It's almost obvious which ones Basch and Roderich picked, Roderich always seeming to go for the more elaborate while Basch settling for the more simplistic. 

"These," Esther sing songs, handing them to her over the crowd of excited children, "are for you." She knows how upset Lili was last night, having made her a cup of milk and sending her off to bed only when she was positive she was okay. Lili's a little worried that Basch and Roderich are going to get chewed out by her later, which should be something of an event as she can't imagine Basch getting scolded by anyone. But Esther, sweet as she is, can be intimidating when she gets really miffed. Lili supposes one has to be sometimes when dealing with little kids. 

She sets the flowers in her room, each on separate windowsills as the hydrangeas are too big to share one. They each come with their own notes and her suspicions are confirmed when she recognizes Roderich's script on the one attached to the hydrangeas, curly and defined just like on her piano notes. Basch in comparison, has rougher handwriting though still legible. 

There's only enough room for a short note on each and they're both similar, apologizing in the beginning, promising to be there next Tuesday in the middle, and ending with how they both care about her. She hides the notes in the middle of one of her favorite story books for safe keeping and takes a flower from each, pressing them inside another book for good measure. 

-

Next Tuesday they arrive a whole fifteen minutes early, arriving with a small lemon cake in tow. It's her favorite and she tries not to feel too pleased about it, but it's so nice being cared for. When they come in she surprises them too, by standing on her tip toes to reach around their necks, hugging the both of them.

For a second, they're both stiff and shocked, but they quickly crouch down to pull her in tight. It's the first time that she feels like they're really a family, not just the beginning shambles of something.

(At the end of the visit Esther does end up giving them an earful, but somehow it ends with them hugging her too, despite her fussing.)

-

A week or so later, the three of them get the special treat of being able to crowd around Esther's rickety TV and watch a movie together. 

The little kids usually have full reign over the TV, cranking the knobs this way and that way so often that Lili can barely piece together what's happening on different channels, so she hardly ever bothers anyways. But it's a rainy day, the kind where the rain drips slow and easy enough that it doesn't scare even the most timid of kids. Esther gives them permission to stay late and they even make popcorn on the stove as a treat, while the rest of the kids don their rain boots and cloaks to splash in puddles and poke at toads.

Neither Basch or Roderich have much input on what they watch, so Lili is left deciding as usual with these kinds of things. She settles for one of the movies that the kids are often too scared to even sit through a fraction of, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Lili thinks part of the reason why the kids won't watch it is because they can't read the words dancing along the screen fast enough to keep up, but it's a perfect fit for the three of them. 

With Basch on her left and Roderich on her right, the three of them curl in close with a shared blanket and nibble on the popcorn during the less important scenes. It's a slow enough movie that she doesn't jump at a scare, but admittedly there's a few times her heart does speed up watching some of the more action packed scenes. If anything, it's just eerie and sad. 

Basch every so often will make comments on the budget of the film or how cheesy it looks, but Roderich hushes him, all for the theatrics of the movie himself. She's a little grateful for their gripping, as it cuts some of the tension that she feels during the spooky parts. Near the end of the movie they're all bumping shoulders and glued side to side, perfectly warm despite the chill growing outside. Sometime during the film they can hear the kids come inside, but it's just a distant noise and thought with how large the house is. 

At the very end of the film when everyone's gone quiet waiting for the climax, Lili can feel something melancholy and bittersweet weigh heavy on her chest. Maybe it's the dark lighting, the TV being the only source of light in the room, creating a soft halo of light around them, or the fact that she feels so safe between Roderich and Basch. But something in her chest spurs her to talk, each clap of thunder pressing the words harder. The words almost seem to come out without even her permission. 

"The uhm," her voice comes out as a croak at first, her eyes glued to the screen in front of her as she clears her throat and tries again, "the human foster homes weren't so bad." Basch and Roderich are still on either side of her and she’s glad for it, because she doesn’t think she could look them point blank and talk about this without crying. Already she’s growing numb, holding her breath without even knowing as she waits for their response. On the screen, she watches as Quasimodo defends Esmerelda with his life and everything he has between blurbs of words.

"Yeah?" Roderich's voice is the gentle push she needs to continue. She can see Basch nod out of her peripheral and she feels like she's walking on a glass bridge over a roaring river. 

"I mean yeah… The… The first couple were nice. There were always mean kids, but that was okay. I could deal with that." Quasimodo is shown on the screen getting stabbed, blood gushing all around the wound in a close up. It comes out between his fingers in wild, messy spurts. 

"The last one though... was tough. Everybody there had problems and a lot of them took medication. Mostly though I remember this one kid, who was seventeen. He reminds me of him," She does a small gesture towards the screen where Quasimodo's limping to the bells, struggling to reach them as he tries and sounds his own death knell. "He… He only had a year left before he'd be on the streets. He couldn't do a lot on his own because he was so forgetful - because of the pills maybe." Quasimodo is still ringing, ringing, ringing the bells. 

"I... was afraid I was going to end up like him, I guess. We never talked, but when I left, he smiled at me. Like he was glad that I was leaving, like he," she struggles for the words, eyes not really focusing on the screen anymore, "like he knew he was done for but at least I made it out. I mean, the hospital wasn't exactly an escape from there but... still." 

On the screen Quasimodo finally collapses, knowing that his love is with another man and he died in the place he wanted to so desperately escape from. The screen pans out to show the bells still ringing and her eyes prickle with tears despite everything, her mouth settling into a frown as she blinks, trying to dry her eyes. 

"Lili..." Roderich whispers, gently putting an arm around her shoulder and hugging her tight against his side. Basch does similar, putting a supportive hand onto hers. She feels like she's recalling a brush with death. It feels so far from her now that she's here, surrounded by her almost parents and a world full of magic. Like it happened on another planet almost.

"I could have ended up like him and even though I made it out I'm still messed up. I don't have a familiar, I don't even know any of the most basic magical stuff... I just don't know why you two would want me, I don't deserve any of it," the words are all garbled as she speaks, wet with her tears, her snot, the rain hammering outside, the damp sorrow hanging in her own chest. "I don't know why I made it out and he didn't." Basch is squeezing her hand tight and Roderich only pulls away to take the empty popcorn bowl off her lap, a few tears sitting at the bottom of it, mixing with the kernels.

"Lili, there's not always an explanation for these things. But you deserve to be here and you deserve to be happy. Every child does," Roderich's voice is soothing, hand rubbing up and down her back as the credits of the movie start to roll. 

"That's right," Basch joins in and they're so kind she almost can't stand it. She shakes her head mutely, quiet hiccups making her back and chest lurch with the movement. 

"I'm not a child anymore though, everyone here is younger than me. I'm the screw up here, but nobody wants to say it," she bites out, bitterness welling up on her tongue like venom. 

"You're not a screw up. None of it is your fault," Basch's voice is hard and leaves no room for argument, but she knows he's coming from a good place. It still doesn't stop her tears though, or the heady feeling of inadequacy that she feels. 

"And there's no other child or person for that matter, that we would rather have in our family. You're a brilliant witch Lili and you have no idea how lucky we feel to have met you," Roderich's voice takes the same shape as Basch's, a soft sternness in his words. They both hold her close, safety and warmth pouring endlessly from their touch. She feels spoiled, cherished, and undeserving of it all, holding onto the two of them like they're her lifelines out on a rocky sea. 

"I don't know how I could ever thank you," Lili cries and hides her face in Roderich's shoulder while Basch rubs her back hard and slow in soothing circles. The tears won't seem to stop coming and she cries for what seems like forever into both of their arms, sniffling and rubbing snot on their nice dress shirts until both of them are sporting wet patches.

"You don't have to thank us. We want to do this," Roderich reminds her, whispering as another late night movie comes on. This time it's a musical humming in the background, fancy show tunes and all. It feels kind of like the rainbow after the storm, Basch’s, Roderich’s, and the musical’s combined murmuring easing her down. They assure her that she's very bright and that she's not far behind as she thinks and that they'd help her every step of the way and a million other things that make her heart lighter.

It takes a little while before the warmth comes back to the room, her eyes rubbed raw at their corners and her cheeks dry. Basch has gone to cracking little jokes again, nitpicking the outfits and the dialogue of the musical characters and Roderich’s arguing with him, defending the artistic integrity of the film. It has her smiling, comfortably dozing in between them until Basch suddenly pipes up. 

"Actually, Lili," Basch starts off, voice holding promise that makes her lift her head up and look at him, "we were going to do this next week, but would you like to spend the night at our house?" His head is tilted down slightly, looking her over for any kind of negative reaction. 

"Basch," Roderich scolds, but even then it sounds halfhearted. Lili sits up a little straighter, all drowsiness swept away by her cold shock as she looks between the two of them.

"What? We could do it tonight. If Lili's comfortable with it, of course." Basch smiles, green eyes holding a light mischievous look to them. Despite her puffy eyes and sniffles it's hard not to return his smile, happiness making her body light and her mood turn into something frothy. 

"Really?" She looks to Roderich, who's smile begrudgingly too now. He's thinking for a moment, tongue sliding over his teeth in that way Lili's seen so many times before when he's deep in thought. "Can I?" 

There’s a quiet moment where she’s looking at him with pleading eyes and he can’t seem to look at her directly, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. When he sighs and tilts his head back exasperated, she knows she’s already won. 

"If you want to, I suppose we can leave right now. We'll just have to discuss it with Esther." She's up before Roderich can even finish what he's saying, excitement making her cheeks buzz as she swings into the hallway and makes a dash for her room. From behind her, she can hear Basch laugh. 

"Don't forget your toothbrush!" Roderich calls good naturedly, if a bit tired. 

-

She packs a new set of clothes for tomorrow, her toothbrush, hairbrush, and a few other necessities to get ready in the morning. She'd normally pack pajamas but Basch tells her its not really necessary, as she already has a pair on and it's not like they'll be going anywhere fancy. So after they talk with Esther she bundles into the back of their pretty blue car with a blanket bunched around her shoulders that Esther refused to let her go without. 

She buckles into her seat and curls up against the window, looking at the towering Gothic building as they pull out of the driveway. Roderich flicks on the heater and the radio and after a little while the cars nice and toasty, playing soft instrumental music through the crackly speakers. It's like she's in a bubble of warmth, looking up every so often to see the back of Basch's head and the glint of streetlamps pass by Roderich's glasses. 

She tries to stay awake, but her tears from earlier leave her exhausted. Curled up in her blanket she slowly nods off, drifting into a snug sleep.

She's only faintly aware of when they pull into the driveway, the lull of the engine suddenly absent. She hears shuffling from the backseat and whispers that she's too lazy to decipher, staying put for as long as possible. When her car door opens she's only half awake, eyes glued shut with the heaviness of sleep. 

Someone carefully unbuckles her and she has half the mind to cling around their shoulders, blanket still wrapped around her. She can hear the trunk slamming shut, the keys jingling to the front door and the sound of it opening. Every step the person takes she can feel right down to his boots, from the gravel of the driveway to the wood flooring inside the house. It's weird (but nice) to be carried again after so many years. She had thought she'd gotten too heavy.

"The covers," Basch whispers above her, but it's only a distant blurb in the back of her mind. There's a little more shuffling and his hands are slipping from her, placing her on a cloud of softness that's somehow perfectly toasty. There's a little tugging on her rain boots and then she's tucked away in more soft, warm covers. 

"Schlaf gut, schatzi," Basch murmurs and she can feel a gentle caress against her cheek, before everything shifts to sweet black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dads are pretty great huh


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know what you're thinking but i PROMISE prussia IS in this fanfcition

When she wakes up, she finds herself staring up at a million stars. 

Even the midnight sky at Esther's place has never shined this bright or clearly, the moon gazing back down at her in all of it's stunning clarity. A quick swipe of her fingers tells her she's definitely on a bed, fingers feeling out plush blankets and a stunning number of pillows, but her eyes betray her. All around her are stars from every angle and direction besides the blanket of black that she lays on and it's utterly breathtaking. She sits up in bed with her head craned upwards, looking for a long moment before she extends one of her hands into the air. 

She's waiting for the moment her fingers hit something solid, but they never do, no matter how far she extends them upwards. That alone has her heart beating something furious in her chest, stumbling to her knees as she tries to reach up; surely there is some kind of ceiling, as she's on a bed after all. But even fully standing, she can't seem to reach the stars or that big, clear moon. It's almost a let down when she reaches out her hands side to side and her right hand touches against soft, weightless fabric. 

Dropping to her knees, she edges her way towards the wall of fabric, her mind piecing an image together. When she pulls the fabric to the side the stars flicker out and disappear, just as she can suddenly hear piano music suddenly filters through the walls. It's still very dark, but in front of her she can now see sunlight barely beading through a dense curtain. It's surely morning by the sound of Roderich's music and the light streaming in, but she feels like she was just in a different world. 

She does a little hop from bed to floor that leaves her a bit wobbly but she manages and thankfully doesn't hit anything on the way to the curtain. She pulls it back and light overtakes the room, so bright for a moment that she has to blink a few times. 

Looking around the now lit room, she's shocked by how spacious it is even despite all of the furniture. The bed is mammoth, standing up high off of the ground and framed with dark richly colored wood. It makes sense now why she couldn't reach the top of the canopy of the bed, as it's massively, almost outrageously tall. The canopy itself no longer twinkles with stars, but rather is a plain white matching the cloud like linens on the bed. 

The bed seems to be part of a furniture set, each piece in the room matching it's color and design and engraved with charming little flower accents. There's a vanity, closet, desk, and even a massive bookcase taking up the wall across from the window. It's a huge testament to her almost-parents wealth certainly. 

Everything looks spotless in addition to being brand new; as she walks around the room she swipes a finger across the desk to have it come back perfectly clean. She opens a drawer or two to find it stocked with paper, pens, and pencils that have yet to be touched. Likewise the closet is completely empty, lined with naked hangers, not counting the one that's filled out with the threadbare jacket she came in with last night. The bookshelf, for all of it's size and stature, is also mostly empty with only a handful of textbooks, piano songbooks, and a few other miscellaneous titles. 

The most striking addition to the room is the little pop of color that sits on the vanity, there being a wicker basket filled with yarn of various colors and sizes. There's even a few sets of needles to go with it and it all of it so obviously meant to be for her that she can't help the smile that bunches and spreads on her lips. The room is just skin and bones waiting to be filled and the idea that it could be hers, that it's potentially hers, almost brings more tears to her eyes. 

The window itself is also stunning, being indented just enough for someone to sit or lay on on it’s plush cushions. The view is amazing too, revealing a plain of lush green grass with a forest dotting along the edges in the distance. With each new gust of wind the grass moves like an ocean, rolling out into forever. It feels like she's in the middle of nowhere hidden away at some fairy tale castle, living out her childhood dreams. Quietly she sits down at it, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. 

She looks at her dinky little suitcase sitting on the polished chair next to the desk and feels almost out of place but exactly where she belongs at the same time. It's overwhelming and she feels so lucky to be here, to be waking up for the first time in a real home, but there’s also a persistent guilt that follows her; that feeling of being undeserving and a burden at the same time. It’s a quiet, soft sadness that washes over her like a drizzle of rain, nailing her to her seat until one of her feet goes numb with static. 

To be this close to happiness only makes her feel more tense in a way. Her hands smooth out across her pajamas and she feels so modest and small in her room, in comparison to everything that's so new and bright. Part of her misses the hustle of mornings at Esther's and Georgina’s, a bunch of little kids scampering around and so excited to start the new day. But here it's just her and it’s so perfect and polished that she's afraid that a wrong step will make everything crumble out from beneath her. 

She thought she was so ready for this and in a lot of ways she is. But in a lot of ways she isn’t too. 

Somehow she finds the strength to get dressed, piling away her pajamas and making the bed before setting out into the hallway. The sound of music gets stronger and she follows it down winding hallways until she turns a corner, entering what she can only assume is the living room.

The room is furnished gorgeously with antique furniture, but it's more well decorated and lived in than what she assumes (tentatively) is her room. There's a stack of mail near the telephone that's yet to be rifled through and there's the smell of coffee thick in the air, accompanying the smell of the dying fire. Huge windows swallow the room in sunlight, casting warmth over the scene.

In the corner there lies a massive grand piano, perhaps the most extravagant thing in the room with it's sweeping curves and rich dark color. From behind it Lili can see Roderich play, his eyes focused down at the keys. He's fully dressed with his hair slicked back as usual. Basch in comparison still looks a little wrinkled from sleep, but dressed none the less. He's got a huge newspaper strewn across his lap like the cartoon father's she's seen in comics, tilting his cup up to get the last dregs of coffee when she comes in. 

They bring a certain warmth to the beautiful porcelain shell of the house, so much so that Lili can feel her doubts ebb away just by the sight of them. 

"Lili," Basch says when he spots her, putting his cup to the side and folding up his newspaper. He seems pleased to see that she's up and Roderich seems likewise, his playing coming down to a soft hush abruptly. 

“Good morning,” she replies, moving to sit when Basch hurriedly gestures for her to, as if remembering himself. At the same time, Roderich gets up from his piano to come sit nearer to them. 

“Did you sleep well?” Roderich says just as she slips into a bright red armchair, taking a spot next to Basch on the couch. He looks a little bit nervous now that she looks at him with how he’s suddenly taken great interest in his own little cup of tea on the table. Basch in comparison seems lax, but he’s giving her his attention too. 

“When I woke up, I thought I was in a field of stars,” she confesses, a smile breaking out onto her face. Roderich relaxes and smiles at the same time that Basch perks up, shaking off the last bits of sleep clinging to him.

“You like it?” Basch asks earnestly with a little smile, eyeing her closely for her reaction. 

“It was amazing! I’ve never seen anything like it - it’s so realistic, I could swear I felt the wind pass by me.” At her excitement she can see Basch’s smile widen, while Roderich hides his own as he adjusts his glasses. 

“The wind was passing by you actually.” Lili’s mouth drops open and Basch chuckles. “The canopy is enchanted to control the temperature, provide a breeze, and it’s soundproofed so you can sleep easier. I could always adjust the enchantment if any of it bothers you though.” 

“You made the enchantment?” Lili asks just as it clicks in her head. She knows that it’s something that Basch excels in and has gone to an academy for, but the idea that he made something like that is mind boggling.

“I did - I made it for you. So I’m glad that you like it.” Basch is looking away at first when he speaks, but then turns towards her fully with a softened expression. She gets the feeling sometimes that Basch is vulnerable with her in a way that he isn’t most people; that maybe it’s even a little hard for him at times. 

Getting up to hug him feels natural, her arms going snug around him for a moment as she says, “It’s really, really wonderful, thank you so much Basch!” 

“You’re welcome,” he replies as she pulls back, smiling as he says it. When she resettles on the edge of her seat, hands placed restlessly on the tops of her knees, the words sputter out. 

“The entire room was really beautiful actually. The knitting supplies and the books…” she goes quiet for a moment, hands sliding up to her thighs before she looks up and says, “It was all really lovely, thank you.” When she looks up, Basch is turned towards Roderich, who’s taken off his glasses to swipe at his eyes. Immediately, a pang of concern goes through her. 

“Roderich? Did I say something wrong?” She asks and Roderich shakes his head, sadly chuckling as Basch rubs a firm hand over his back. 

“No, Lili dear, you’ve done nothing wrong. I’m sorry I’ve started up this nonsense,” he sniffles, gesturing to himself loosely with a free hand. 

“It’s not nonsense,” Basch says before she can get a word in and Roderich heaves a little sigh in response, sliding his glasses back on. 

“I know, I know - I’m just - we’re just glad you’re happy, Lili.” He says the last part a little bit quieter, eyes wet and tender from behind his glasses. He reaches out a hand to her and she takes it, both of them squeezing and looking at each other wordlessly for a moment. 

There’s not a hundred percent confirmation that she’s going to get adopted or that they’ll be the ones or that the room is even hers, but Lili finds herself tearing up too anyways. 

-

After one emotional breakfast later they spend most of the morning showing Lili around the house, though the majority of it isn't even in use. At her request they show her the unoccupied parts of the house, leading her down long twisty hallways and opening and closing doors to rooms that are practically embedded with history. A lot of the rooms are either empty or caked in dust, with furniture that hasn't been touched in what feels like centuries and stuffed with old portraits and photographs of Basch's ancestors.

Through talking to Esther and the other children she's come to understand that the majority of witches have big families and stay tight knit under the idea that numbers make a family stronger. But as they go through the old winding house, it's more than obvious that Basch and Roderich live alone. It's a question she sets aside for later though, treading carefully for her first visit. 

They spend the most time though letting Lili explore the rooms they use most frequently and the rooms that are the most embedded with magic. Roderich and Basch have to piece together loose explanations on the little magical quirks of the house, like how the hot water never runs out, how the dishes clean themselves, and how the curtains perfectly blot out light when they're drawn shut. Together they make it through their bedroom, the bathrooms (Lili seems taken with the idea that she gets a personal one), and Basch's personal study with it's cauldron and all. 

In the afternoon, after Lili's somewhat satisfied with her exploring, they sit around the living room together and eat snacks just like they would do at Esther's place. Lili's spread out on their comfortable couch, sinking into the cushions with her feet on strewn across Basch's lap and feels truly at home for the first time all day, the rush of earlier adrenaline fading from her. Roderich is in the armchair nearby, chin in hand as the conversation fluctuates and ebbs. They spend the rest of the evening like that, listening to the radio and talking until Lili has to go back to the foster home.

It's both a disappointing feeling and relieving one when she has to pack her suitcase again, but she knows that they're almost there at this imaginary line. She's been standing at this starting line for her entire life, waiting for the baton so she can finally start running and she knows it's just skimming her fingertips. She's waiting, hand and arm stretched so far it hurts. 

-

After the first trip to the Zwingli household Esther doesn’t exactly interrogate her, but it’s pretty close. There’s no bright white light on her face making her sweat and although she thinks Esther’s trying to be stern, she’s certainly no bad cop. Together they sit at the dining room table where dinner is held and where Esther does most of her paperwork, Georgina providing the background noise of running up and down the halls chasing the children. Their squeaks of laughter make Lili feel perfectly at home in comparison to the quiet of the Zwingli house. 

“Your necklace, dear?” Esther starts off, flipping through pages of crisp white documents and marking things down with a fountain pen. It confuses Lili for a moment before she makes a quiet little ‘oh’ sound, suddenly remembering the heavy locket hanging from her neck. She’d grown so accustomed to it’s weight that she’d forgotten it was even there. 

It’s a heavy brass locket, rounded and completely smooth with no other details. There isn’t even a latch for it to open, so it looks like just a heavy brass pendant, but Lili knows that it’s a locket. Unlike some of the other children, she got the full explanation instead of the whole “only hold onto it if you’re scared and want to go home” shtick. 

She watches as Esther produces a wand from nowhere, whispering some words and tapping on it twice with the tip of her wand. A pinprick of light develops on either of the sides of the little brass nugget, moving until they become a crease and connect down the side. It pops open with a flourish, revealing a velvety lined interior with a large colored crystal inside. 

Essentially it’s her government sanctioned report card, bodyguard, and taxi back home. Heavily enchanted with protective charms it ensures the safety of the child, while the gem inside becomes colored as it records the feelings of the child. Lili’s almost upset that she hasn’t tried out the teleportation aspect of it; if any child holds it and sincerely feels the need to escape a situation, they’ll wind up back on the foster home’s doorstep. If this wasn’t enough, it also can’t be removed until the child’s back in the foster home. They even come in rings, bracelets, and earrings, though Esther tells her that those are a bit trickier to read. 

As Esther reads the gem Lili suddenly becomes very interested in all the little dents and scribbles of color on the hardwood of the table, dragging her finger up and down the little creases. She doesn’t know how Esther reads the colors, or what she can see exactly; she only knows that learning how to read the gems takes a long time. When she looks up she can see shimmering yellow between Esther’s fingers and shades of lilac coming through. From behind it she can see Esther smile. 

When she’s done, she places the gem back inside the locket without closing it, turning to some of her documents and beginning to write some things down. “So, did you have fun?” She asks, looking up from her papers over her reading glasses.

“I did,” Lili replies, feeling a little less awkward now that she’s been acknowledged. 

“What did you do?” Esther asks with a knowing smile. It’s all that Lili needs to go into a long rambling segment about how big the Zwingli house is and how small it makes her feel, but how it makes her feel good too. She talks about waking up in the morning, how quiet it is in compared to the foster home, how they explored every nook and cranny, how she woke up to see stars. She goes on for so long that Esther gets down with her paperwork, the two of them talking it out until her throat gets dry and Esther’s abruptly needed by one of the other children.

Little to say, she’s approved for another home visit.

-

The first visit to the Zwingli household is Lili’s literal foot in the door to many, many more visits. Sometimes she stays the night, sometimes they just go out for the afternoon, and other times they don’t go to the house at all. Some of the more minor places included an ice cream shop, a park (although Lili enjoyed that one Basch and Roderich seemed mostly sweaty), and an aquarium. 

The museum trip was a much bigger event, considering they left the country. It was her first time teleporting and it was in some ways underwhelming when compared to the graphic and romanticized versions of it in her storybooks. They had all piled into the back of a taxi with Lili sandwiched in the middle, drove for awhile, then turned a corner and fluidly transitioned into some busy street in the middle of France. 

Despite the teleportation, that day was a highly memorable and fun one. Lili even got to hold the camera and snap as many photos as she wanted though the first couple turned out a little on the blurry side. There’s a few of her taking selfies, some with Roderich and Basch, some with Basch and Roderich alone, and one or two where Basch asked a stranger to take a photo of them. There’s even a photo or two where she’s convinced Roderich into posing with her, one with them with their arms crossed next to an Egyptian sculpture. 

At one point they even catch onto the tail end of a tour held by a museum curator and although it’s spoken entirely in French she gets Basch and Roderich to take turns translating for her. Next time, Roderich whispers to her, they’ll just get her some kind of magic translator which is astounding for both the fact that magic translators exist and that they talk about coming back here as if it’s just a simple drive down the road. Which it is, technically, but it still makes Lili feel so lucky.

They see countless sculptures, paintings, scrolls, and pottery; so much so in fact it all kind of mixes in her head together at the end of the day when she’s looking at photographs and trying to keep her thick ice cream from dripping everywhere onto her. When night hits they make a short trip over to the Eiffel Tower, where they take even more photos underneath it’s brilliant light. 

When she goes home that night she spends so long shuffling through the photos that she wakes up with them scattered all around her, the images flickering with magic around her like little waves on a quiet lake. 

-

Soon enough it gets to the point where half of Lili’s meager amount of things are at the Zwingli household and the other half are at her room at the foster home. Some of her staples, like her toothbrush and hairbrush, make a permanent residency in her suitcase because of how often she shifts around. Of course it’s still an undeclared thing if the room she stays at in the Zwingli house is hers, because they still can’t be outright about anything yet really, but it’s definitely an unsaid thing considering so many of her things are in there now. 

Not everyday is an adventure though and the more time she spends with Basch and Roderich the more she sees different sides of them. Some days they go back to the house just to laze around the house and simply be in each others company. It’s on one of these days that she first hears Roderich play the same line of music at the piano, at least eight times over. 

The first time he messes up, the music comes to such an abrupt stop that she lifts her head to look at him to see him scowling. When he looks up at her it’s one of those rare moments where she can see his blush of embarrassment. It’s weird to see someone so much older than you get frustrated with something, but it’s one of those things she’s just learning to accept happens.

“Don’t mind me.” Roderich gives her a brief smile before he starts working the same line of music repeatedly, until Lili’s heard it enough times to pinpoint exactly where he’s going wrong. By the time Basch walks into room from the kitchen, she’s given up on focusing reading, having reread the same line so many times it sounds like gibberish in her head. 

“He’s not mad or anything,” Basch whispers as he takes a seat next to her, lifting his ankle up to rest on his knee, “he just needs to work through it.” In the background there’s a tense moment after Roderich’s messed up again and then it’s quiet until there’s the sound of papers shuffling and things being scratched out by pen. 

A few more tense minutes roll by until the peak rises again in the music and when Roderich goes through it effortlessly you can almost hear his satisfaction in the way that he plays. 

Of course, there are also moments when Basch looses his top too. The most memorable she can recall is a morning when she slips out from behind her bed’s canopy to hear the last snippets of what is undoubtedly an argument between the two of them, carrying from their shared bathroom just down the hall.

“All I’m saying is you need to quit doing that - how am I supposed to find anything if you pull it all out of order?” Basch asks, tone thick with annoyance. Her ears strain to hear Roderich’s low voiced response, which goes on for a minute before Basch cuts in with something equally low, but more pointed and aggressive. It goes on like that for a minute, the two of them interjecting until it gets more and more cutthroat until,

“Roderich.” Basch’s voice goes a shade darker, something she rarely hears. There’s complete quiet in comparison to before, when they were rattling around the bathroom together. She doesn’t know what happens after that, with how quietly Roderich must have responded, but when she comes into the living room that morning it feels like there wasn’t even an argument at all with the way they both regard her. 

-

She knows things are starting to get serious when a woman by the name of Linnett comes to visit the foster home. It’s one of those slow days where Basch and Roderich don’t visit and it’s raining, so all the kids are cooped up inside and drowsy from the lull of the rain hitting the roof. Most of them are crowded around the TV or telling each other spooky stories, eating treats and snuggling with Georgina on the floor with a heap of blankets. 

Linnett has thick blue eyeshadow smeared on, bright lime green glasses, and an air of intimidation that makes Lili just a little nervous. Esther and her seem to have a jovial rivalry of some kind, Linnett making brutal commentary (for old ladies that is) on Esther’s cooking skills when she’s offered some baked goods. It lessens the tension in the air a little bit before they really get to work and start to make Lili sweat.

This time, it really does feel like the whole good cop bad cop set up. There’s the low thrum of thunder outside in the distance and the rain has darkened the sky enough that the light above the dining room table has to be lit. Not to mention its so quiet today, in comparison to how it usually it is. Esther sits to her right, Linnett to her left, and the air reminds Lili of every parent teacher conference that she’s had to sit through. 

Thankfully though, there’s a lot of conversational fluff to start with. Linnett and Esther ask her to describe Roderich and Basch, some of the trips they’ve gone on together (she shows some of the pictures even), and what an average day at their home is like. They’re all very general questions that Esther has asked her a million times on trips back home after she’s studied her gem, but she knows that they’re important and should be asked. It’s fun to start with surprisingly, Esther and Linnett teasing each other and making witty quips and jokes. There’s a noticeable difference though when the two women begin to grow serious, Esther suddenly falling quiet and Linnett taking the reigns of the conversation.

“Lili,” Linnett starts with her smokers rasp, “you’re a young lady, so I don’t think I need to explain what the Zwingli’s intentions are like I do with most kids.” Linnett isn’t mean, but rather honest as possible when she says it. The only thing scary about it is the finality of the situation, but at the same time, it’s something that she’s excited for.

“But you’re still not an adult. Things can be hard, difficult, and scary at your age. So when I ask you, if you want to be part of the Zwingli family, I want you to know it’s okay if you say no, or if you say that you’re not ready yet. Okay?” The way she says it is so soft, kind, and yet serious that Lili’s pulled back for a moment, face going pink and eyes sharply watering. Her softness is what does Lili in for some reason, her heart fluttering too fast in her chest. It’s all becoming suddenly very real.

“Lili,” Linnett says, “I want you to take this seriously. I know you’ve been visiting with the Zwingli’s for awhile and they’ve been very nice, but I need you to be honest.” There’s a pause where Lili’s wiping at her eyes, sniffling. Esther reaches out to gently touch her shoulder, squeezing it for a moment. The small gesture is enough to help her pull back the tears, eyes clearing as she looks at Linnett and nods for her to continue. 

“If given the chance, would you want to be part of the Zwingli family?” Linnett says it slow and clearly, her hands folded together neatly. Esther’s reflecting her posture, but has a small, comforting smile that puts her at ease. They’re both staring her down, searching her face for the answer.

Moments like this are unforgettable. She can remember how Linnett’s bright pink nails dig slightly into the back of her palms, how the air smells like freshly brewed chamomile tea and popcorn from the living room. There’s the sound of children whispering in the next room over and her feet on the ground feel so heavy. Her face burning with tears, the sound of the rain and thunder that’s suddenly so much closer than before. She’s knows the answer, knows how she feels. 

Her lips move and it’s so loud in her ears that she almost can’t hear it at all.


	7. You're Home

Surprisingly, witches celebrate Christmas.

She doesn’t know why she ever thought that they wouldn’t in hindsight, but it comes as a little bit of a shock when Esther starts setting up the towering Christmas tree in the parlor. The kids string on lights, garlands of popcorn, tinsel, candy canes, and bright big bulbs. There’s every kind of decoration possible, the tree absolutely smothered with them until the point that Lili thinks it’s a little gaudy, but perfect anyways. By the end of the week, the bottom half of the tree is missing all of it’s candy canes despite Esther’s pestering.

When Basch and Roderich ask her if she’d like to stay over for Christmas, she has to restrain herself from practically yelling the word yes, instead the word coming out in a high pitched strangled noise. There’s nothing she could imagine wanting more than spending her Christmas with her almost-there-very-close-to-becoming-reality family.

Decorating the tree at their house is admittedly a lot more fun with the absence of a million little kids running around and bickering about where to put what. Basch and Roderich help her decorate, hanging fancy old bulbs on the tree while Christmas music plays throughout the house. She gets Roderich to dance with her to it, but convincing Basch is a little bit harder with how stiff and embarrassed he gets; but it’s a lot of fun anyways. She even gets to place the star at the top of the tree, Roderich lifting her up on his shoulders for her to reach it. 

After they’ve done the tree, they all sit down and build a gingerbread house together, even if she’s a little bit old for it. Though the little house falls down a couple of times, Lili still thinks it looks pretty good when they’re finished with it’s cute gumdrop roof and little peppermint walkway.

The days leading up to Christmas are terribly exciting. Every time she goes home her stocking is a little bit fuller and she has three sizable presents under the tree, despite how she badgers Basch and Roderich for buying her things. She thinks part of their excitement is that they get to buy stuff for her and do all the silly little traditions that just weren’t as much fun before Lili was around, even if she’s a teenager. She’s more than happy to oblige them, just as eager to try the things she’s been missing out on. 

When she wakes up late Christmas morning, she rushes out into the living room to hear the fireplace crackling and cheery holiday music being played on the radio. Basch and Roderich are snuggled up together on the couch, greeting her warmly when she goes in to hug the both of them at once.   
Before they can say anything else, she’s taking her presents for them out from under the tree, her face flushed with excitement as she plops them in their laps. The wrapping is a bit crude because of how little wrapping paper Esther had left for her, but she made it work. 

“Go on!” she gestures for them to start unwrapping and neither of them can seem to control their grins. There’s a moment where they just look at each other before they tear open their gifts and Lili can just feel the happiness radiating off the both of them. Roderich manages to pull his gift out first, Basch trying to open his a little more neatly. 

“Lili, oh my goodness. Did you make this yourself?” He holds up a soft sweater, decorated with snowmen and little Christmas tree bulbs among bright Christmas-y patterns. Basch’s is similar, except with reindeer and candy canes. Basch is immediately shrugging into his, which makes her laugh. 

“I did! I hope they fit okay, I was a little worried about sizing…” She says as she leans in to hug Basch back.

“They’re wonderful Lili, thank you. I’ll have to wear this every single day of my life now,” Basch says in a mock serious voice, which Roderich painfully joins in on. 

“He’s right, I’ll have to wear this to all my performances now.” Roderich gives a cheeky grin and she’s bubbling with laughter, halfheartedly scolding their teasing. 

After that they insist that she opens at least two of her gifts before they start opening the one’s that they’d bought for each other, so she starts by lugging out the second largest of the bunch. She puts on a show of rattling a little before opening it, fingers tearing into the wrapping as Basch begins to snap pictures of her. 

The first gift is a heavy, soft, and very nice plush jacket. It’s a soft brown color with big buttons that goes all the way down to her mid thigh and it’s easily the nicest coat that she’s ever owned. The pockets are huge and spacious and it’s so warm that she has to take it off before opening the next gift. 

The next one is the largest and heaviest in the pile and she knows when Basch warns her not to shake this one, that she’s in for a treat. Carefully she unwraps it to reveal a slender wooden stand that holds a telescope at the top, intricate with several gears and different lenses to adjust. She can hardly contain her excitement, practically bouncing up and down as she quickly hugs the two of them before going to look through it. It gives her an amazingly odd view of the Christmas tree that has her blinking afterwards. 

After that, Roderich and Basch exchange gifts. Basch gets what seems to be a very expensive watch that has him grinning and admiring it for some time, the cogs and inner workings revealed in the face of it. On the back is engraved a little sweet note from Roderich that has Basch leaning over to kiss him and Lili can’t even manage a gross sound with how sweet the moment is. Roderich on the other hand nearly loses it when he unwraps his present, giving Basch a look that’s almost angry when he pulls it out.

“I can’t believe you got me this Basch,” he says breathlessly, fingers running across the beautiful dark rich wood of the violin. “This is too much, I can’t imagine how much this must have costed…” 

“It was a little expense and you know it,” Basch says before leaning in and squeezing his hand. Lili’s certainly not going to point out how he already has another violin, viola, piano, trumpet, and cello. She doesn’t really get it, but seeing Roderich this happy makes her happy and that’s all that really matters. 

Her last present almost gets her excited as the telescope does, making her gasp when she pulls the wrapping paper off. It’s the cutest little radio that’s she’s ever seen, bright red with big knobs and a little silver antenna. It’s even got a little handle on it to carry it places. She recognizes it as the one that she mentioned passingly that she wanted from the store; Roderich or Basch must have kept it in mind even though it was months ago. 

She flicks it on for a moment if only to scroll through the various channels playing Christmas music before she shuts it off and hugs Roderich and Basch for the millionth time that night, squeezing them both tight in her arms. She’s not sure if it’s even possible to fit so much happiness into one single morning, much less a day. 

“Hold on, we’ve got one more present for you.” Basch says when she pulls away, sliding a little green box out of one of his pockets. 

“Basch! Roderich!” She teasingly scolds the two of them, hands on her hips. “This is really too much,” she says, though she’s plucking the gift from Basch’s hands anyways. Roderich is adamant about getting her to pose before she opens this one, snapping a picture or two before they both urge her to open it. 

It’s only got a little red ribbon on it for decoration, so it’s easy to open. She simply pops off the top of it to reveal an intricate and flat glass ornament with gold writing and little stockings on it. She’s confused, looking back up at them before she even reads the text. They both suddenly seem much more emotional than before and not the excited Christmas glow; they each have that heartwarming tender kind of look to them that immediately has her throat closing up. 

“Our first Christmas as a family…” She reads it out loud, the year following the writing. Each stocking is a little different and has a name written on it, reading Basch, Lili, and Roderich, from left to right. Speechless, she looks back up at them, eyes suddenly burning with tears. 

“Lili,” Basch says, smiling. “The adoption papers went through.” Warm tears are falling down her cheeks.

“It’s official. We’re a family,” Roderich says, looking just about as teary eyed as she is despite his wide smile. She inhales shakily, her entire body trembling with the breath. She holds the ornament tight to her chest, pressing it against her thundering heart. 

“I can’t believe I have two dads!” She tries to smile when she says it, but she’s crying so hard it mangles it a little bit. Her words have even Basch crying, the three of them pulling into a hug that’s tight and secure and perfect. It lasts for a long time. 

They spend the rest of Christmas in the living room around the tree after their initial crying fit, washing it down with hot cocoa and candies from each of their stockings. They talk all morning and into the night about when she’s moving in, about the adoption process, and other miscellaneous things about moving in. In between she messes with her presents and watches the Christmas cartoons on the television. 

That night she falls asleep wrapped up in her heavy warm coat, lulled to sleep by the sound of Basch and Roderich talking in hushed voices. She’s still barely awake when she feels a blanket draped across her legs and a kiss pressed to her forehead.

Her heart is a heavy, full thing.


	8. Little Miss Warbucks

After that, things start to fall into place. 

The first week of Lili's new life is dedicated to a lot of shopping. More shopping than she's done in her entire life probably. All of her clothing, from socks to shirts are hand me down's, but Roderich and Basch are quick to amend this. Their first shopping trip together is something like ripping off a band aid for her when they tell her not to pay attention to price and suggest she go in stores that she knows are clearly expensive. Beautiful women and well dressed girls stand around browsing clothes that before, she'd never even consider looking at. 

But now she's almost expected to with Basch and Roderich loosely hovering around her and pointing out things now and again that catch their eye, urging her to try on things sometimes just for fun. She's more used to rustling around in bargain bins, so she naturally gravitates towards the clearance racks, but with encouragement from the both of them she eventually starts to pick what truly appeals to her despite her insecurities. 

After the first few times in the dressing room with Basch and Roderich standing outside like guard dogs, she starts to feel a bit more normal. The compliments from the both of them make her feel like she's a natural despite the old dress she shops in, as if she really does deserve to be in a place with such beautiful women and things. 

She can't seem to stop looking at price tags though, which Basch and Roderich lightly scold her for whenever she brings it up. Even Basch, who's known to be frugal, seems to have no limitations when it comes to what she wants. It's overwhelming a bit, seeing her parents arms get weighed down by her purchases from store to store, but they don't seem to mind in the slightest. 

So after the first day of moving and settling in, the next day is dedicated to an entirely new wardrobe, completed with accessories, shoes, and everything else she's ever worried about not having enough of. When she goes home that night her closet is stocked from top to bottom, filled with clothes that she could point out in a magazine. There's even a couple new sets of pajamas to slip into, perfectly soft and silky against her skin. To say she feels spoiled would be a massive understatement. 

The next day is more shopping, but of a different variety. 

When she walks outside, dressed in an entirely new outfit and feeling spiffy, she makes her way towards their car only for Basch to catch onto her upper arm and stop her. She looks up to see him pointing a thumb over his shoulder behind him, where Roderich is already walking. 

"We can't get your school supplies in just any shopping district." He drops his hand and makes his way off the driveway, down a little path with stones underneath the colossal tree in their front yard. Lili's been meaning to ask them about if she could make a swing for it, but hasn't quite gotten to it. 

"We're going to a magical shopping district then?" she asks, carefully navigating the little stones as to not get her new pointed shoes dirty. 

"Right. The city is called Tranquillen and it's actually located on a cloud," Roderich answers, teasing her endless curiosity for everything magic. He's standing beneath the shade of the tree, nearly at the base of it now. Her eyes swing up from the ground to look at him and then the nearly cloudless sky, squinting against the light. 

"How does that even work?" she asks, head buzzing with ideas. She's heard of something similar in fairy tales so it's not an entirely new concept, but the idea that it's real is still riveting, as usual. She imagines a fluffy cotton candy city, complete with little storm clouds of people and gusts of wind.

"We could go into the logistics of it, but I'm afraid that would take all day. For once it's just easier to say that it's the combined efforts of witches and a lot of magic." Roderich shifts from where he's standing, rolling his neck around his shoulders to peer up just as Lili is doing for a second before he looks back at her. "Actually, you could learn more about it in magical theory if you wanted to," he pipes up, an offer rolling off of his tongue. 

"Hm, maybe," there's a brief pause and then, "so how are we going to get to Trankillen?" 

"Tranquillen," Basch corrects, before continuing, "there's a lot of different ways to travel depending on what your familiar's affinity is and how you want to do it. Most air affinity familiars, like Roderich, take to jumping off cliffs, but my family was predominantly filled with earth affinity familiars. So, we take this way because the path has been well used and trusted." Lili's eyes are up, looking at the long branches of the tree spread out like veins across the sky. 

"Jumping off a cliff sounds kinda scary," she mumbles, head still craned upwards. Roderich chuckles across from her. All she can think of is using the tree’s branches as a slingshot, but surely that’s not right.

"Lili," Roderich grabs her attention, looking pointedly towards the ground. She looks and sees Basch and him are both waiting, standing in a loose circle of mushrooms. 

"Oh." She quickly she steps inside the circle, despite the squelch the ground gives beneath her brand new shoes. It's quickly forgotten though in favor of seeing Basch open up his coat, retracting a long and thin wand made of a richly colored wood. It decidedly fits his image, a singular blue moonstone at the very end of the wand encrusted in silver. It's not the first time she's seen it with all the housework he does with it, but it’s still enchanting to see. 

"Okay so, you're going to feel the ground fall out from beneath you, but don't resist it and don’t panic. Just let your body go limp, but hang on to us. Got it?" Basch is holding his wand, the tip of it beginning to glow green as he speaks. Both he and Roderich extend a hand to her, which she accepts, gripping onto them solidly. She nods at him after, hoping she's radiating confidence.

"Take a deep breath," Basch says, smiling lightly. She looks to Roderich as she breathes in, his eyes having turned a solid black. It's a little alarming to see at first, but they've discussed before that familiar's have trouble holding a human form when magic is used. She lets out her breath in a rush, trying to ease her muscles at the same time that Basch rattles off a spell, wand creating a green glowing rune in the air that dissipates after a moment. 

For a moment, nothing happens. Then, the ground beneath them turns fluid, slipping out from beneath them just like water and tugging them beneath the earth. She holds out against it if only for a moment out of fright before she succumbs to the feeling, letting herself slip deep beneath the surface. She loses sight of Roderich and Basch but the steady of feeling of the weight of their palms in hers keeps her calm. 

It only lasts for a second really. It reminds her of dunking her head underwater in the bathtub, eyes shut and body enclosed by white walls. It feels just as warm, like she's sliding down a tube with wind rushing by in her ears until she jolts to a stop, the weight of her body suddenly piling onto her all at once as if it were catching up with her. 

She's a little queasy when they land, but Roderich and Basch are quick to pull her to the side and find her a seat. She lets herself be dragged along, ears suddenly filled with the bustling sounds of a thriving marketplace and vision smothered in color. Even the smells are suddenly too much in comparison to the clean country air from before; she can feel a headache blossoming already in her temple, a clean spike of pain there. 

"Deep breaths," Roderich rubs up and down her back as she crouches over.

"Are you going to be sick?" Basch asks quietly, holding her hand tight. She takes a few deep breaths like Roderich's instructed, closing her eyes as she tries to ground herself. That was way different from the taxi cab to France. 

"No. I just need a second." She says, hunched over on herself. She doesn’t think she’s gonna be sick, but she does need to take a few deep breaths. "Everything was easy, except the landing." 

"The first time is always the hardest," Roderich reassures her, patting her knee sympathetically. She's fine after a handful of minutes, but the two of them insist that they stay for a little bit longer just to make sure the moment has passed. 

She takes the time to study her surroundings in the meantime. They've seem to ended up in a little park like clearing that’s just off a street that leads out into a bustling market. It's big enough for numerous fairy rings, where people sink in and out of the earth in a blink of an eye. Most of them seem well adjusted to the shift, walking straight out of the fairy rings as if they had only experienced a little dip in the road. The children and the elderly though seem to be the most effected, quickly making their way over to the many seats in the small area. The fact that she’s the only young person there is a little embarrassing, but she tries not to let it bother her too much.

After she can finally convince Basch and Roderich that she's fine, they go out onto the main road together. Immediately she's taken with the scenery, magic thrumming in the air and under her skin giving her goosebumps. Vendors with long, pointed witch hats try and sell colorful candies and street food to the many passersbyers with flashy displays and wand work. In shop windows where one would normally find puppies, she sees creatures she's only seen in books. Even the roads here seem to glimmer and glow golden underneath their feet. 

The most striking detail though is how nature is so weaved throughout the city, an abundance of flowers, tall looming trees, and vines completely covering the face of buildings. When they pass over a long bridge she looks over the edge to see a deep river, with fish and magical creatures glittering beneath the surface doing their own trading and shopping among coral reefs. She spots one man in a long canoe, dipping his head beneath the water like an ostrich does dirt, engaging in what seems to be an intense argument with a shark woman. With a whisper from Basch, she's reminded not to stare, and quickly busies herself with looking straight ahead. 

It's then that she gets the idea to look up, eyes flickering overhead to see a complicated and tangled canopy where people rest on magic carpet taxis and manta ray birds of every imaginable color flutter through the air. It seems that several magical beings and vendors have taken home to the thick branches of a tree that presides over most of the city, offering sweet shade from the harsh sun. Like a mirage of color, glass baubles and flags she doesn’t recognize hang dispersed throughout the tree, coloring the streets through the sunlight. 

Noticing her obvious amazement, Basch wordlessly hooks her hand onto his arm as they walk to make sure she doesn't bump into anything. Roderich seems pleased by her ogling, going as far to lean in and whisper, "And we haven't even seen the underground district yet." 

"Underground district? Are going there right now? Or are we just going to stay on uhm, ground level or?" her voice is a little distant, the rest of her captivated by everything overhead. It seems here that people let their familiars go as they like, seeing as how they're sprinkled throughout the city. On the ground there walks grizzly bears to sluggish alligators, basking in the sunlight near the rivers. Human zoos are nowhere as impressive, she thinks. 

"We're getting most of your school supplies, like the rest of your textbooks and whatnot on the ground level. We'll go underground to get your wand fitting done and we'll get your ceremonial robes at the end of next winter to make sure they fit properly," Basch lists, springing out his wand to conjure a map of the city. It’s too confusing to understand at first glance, several layers of it overlapping. 

"I get my wand today?" She perks up a bit at the idea, looking up from the map at Basch. He smiles sadly at her. 

"It's a fitting, so no. You'll pick out the materials today and they'll make it over the course of a couple of weeks. Maybe a month or more, depending on if they need to work it under the light of the moon," Basch explains just as Roderich pulls them to a stop in front of their first store of the day. In comparison to some of the other shops she had passed by it seems quite dull, but she's never turned up her nose at books before.

They slip into the bookshop, toted around by Basch who stacks a few books and items into a basket supplied by the store. This is the routine for an hour or so, slipping in and out of stores while Basch and Roderich make her purchases. Sometimes she gets to put in her input though when it comes to the more optional, decorative purchases, like her quills, folders, or the stretchy book covers meant to protect her textbooks. She informs Basch that she'll be using the bright rainbow patterned dolphin one that he had called tacky teasingly, specially for the textbook meant for his class. 

Everything's on sale too, with how the back to school shopping craze had already ended. The insanely cheap prices on everything has Basch puffing his chest out every time they leave the store, eyes scanning over the receipts when they leave. There’s nothing that lifts his spirits like a good deal. Roderich seems to pick up on her slight mood though, promising to her that they can get a treat at the end of the day, her pick. It doesn't erase the fact that she feels stuck behind her peers, but it does make her feel a little bit better. 

Things start to get interesting again when they go under ground via some stairs that remind her vaguely of a subway station. It's surprisingly well lit, glowing orbs that act as miniature suns hanging from the miles high ceilings. There's multiple levels underneath the city and it seems like one could get lost fairly easily with how many signs are hanging around. The ground, like upstairs, is paved with cobblestone and is just as colorful as anywhere else in the city.

There's a few enchanting little twists though, like the abundance of gem and crystal shops and the groaning of furnaces churning, the blacksmiths clinking away at hot metals. The more mechanical types seem to hide away here, hefty goggles sitting on the noses of many shopkeepers and soot staining their hands. The air is still crisp and fresh though and nature still seems to be the heart of the district despite how technology seems to thrive.

After a brisk walk they come to a stop in front of an eerie plain looking shop with no windows and only a wide, arching door. She confuses it for a civilians home at first, until she sees the shop's sign proudly displayed higher up on one of the walls. She wants to ask about it's odd looks, but Basch is opening up the door and funneling them inside from the foot traffic before she gets a chance.

"The two thirty, I presume?" it's an odd voice, chipper but hoarse and accented with a language she doesn't know. They step into a small, but perfectly hospitable waiting room furnished with hardwood floors and lavish red velvet sofas for customers to wait on. In the corners sit huge orchids in pots, the insides of them glowing like light bulbs. It's easily the most expensive shop they've stepped into all day, with it's gleaming, polished desk and the cute golden service bell sitting on top of it.

"That's us," Basch chimes in just as a little lizard man steps out from behind one of two doorways from behind the desk. Lili's eyes don't boggle out at the sight of him, as she's seen many miraculous things today, but he is an oddity that she can't resist studying. 

He has thick, coarse scales over the entirety of his body that are dark green in shade with a bright speckled pink throughout. Only standing about to her abdomen, he's very short, with a long fat tail dragging behind him and a floppy spine going all the way down his back. The most striking detail, beyond his gnarled hands and long sharp claws, are definitely his eyes though. They're slits and seem to miraculously change color every time he does a slow, long blink, once in awhile. 

As if his body wasn't striking enough alone, he's a rather well dressed lizard. A crisp white button up shirt is rolled up to his elbows and on top of it he wears a dark red pinstriped vest, a charming little gold chain slipping out from the pocket. Something tells Lili that it's real gold. 

The door to his left is shut tight and the other is wide open, revealing a large workshop where other magical creatures appear to be at work. Little lizard men seem to be the majority though, each having a different speckled color across their scales. They don't seem to be nearly as elegant in clothes though, all marked with soot and a hole here and there. It seems that he’s their only front man.

It takes the little pink speckled lizard man a moment to reach the desk and get situated on his stool, tongue poking out periodically like a snake’s as he sifts through the drawers and pulls out a few papers. He pushes aside the singular quill on his desk in favor of dipping one of his claws in ink and scrawling away.

"And you must be Miss Zwingli, hm?" The little lizard man looks up with one eye, only for a moment while he fills out some forms. From the workroom, there's the sound of metal clinking and a saw eating through wood. 

"Ah, yes," she almost forgets herself, still not quite used to her new last name. Something about being under the little lizard man's gaze makes her shy away, as he seems so professional and well kept. Roderich's gentle hand on the small of her back eases her anxiety though. 

"First wand fitting, must be a very exciting day for you," he almost singsongs, sliding Basch a few forms that he quickly signs, scrawling out his loopy signature with the obnoxiously large quill that he’s handed.

"Yes, I've been looking forward to it." She smiles politely, but there’s truth to her words. She wants her wand, she wants to go to school, and she wants to meet her familiar most of all, but she leaves those bits out of her answer.

"Alright then, please take a seat," The little lizard man seems delighted when Basch finishes up with the papers, evenly tapping them against the desk before filing them away with a click. She does as he says, taking a seat on one of the plush velvety sofas in the room, watching as the lizard jumps down from his stool and whisks a sprawl of black cloth from seemingly nowhere. 

"My name's Mr. Prilig and I'll be your helper today, Ms. Zwingli. Would you please turn your back towards me a bit?" She shifts as he says to, giggling a little nervously when he runs the dark cloth over her eyes and ties it tight, effectively blindfolding her. 

"Now," he begins, helping her to her feet with his odd gnarled hands, "I'm going to lead you into a pitch black room with different materials hanging on the wall. I want you to hold out your hands and touch them, letting your magic guide and pull you until you find the right ones." He extends her hands in the air, drawing them in wide circles as a display. It makes her giggle, nodding as he continues. 

"I want you to take your time when you do this. Don't just pick a material just because you're tired." He makes her hands sag down as he exaggerates. "Or because you think something feels cool." He draws a line straight down her palm with one of his claws and she can't help her laugh, shoulders rising up squeamishly. 

"It has to feel right, which is why we use the blindfolds. Now, when you find the materials you like, you'll have to tell me if you want a lot of it on your wand or not. Don't worry though, your magic will tell you everything you need to know," his words are obviously well rehearsed but she feels like she's in good hands, like he really enjoys his craft. She nods blindly, feeling him lightly squeeze her hands. 

"Alright then. Parents, would you like to watch?" It's weird being so securely blindfolded, not being able to see a thing in the middle of the day. She stands a bit awkwardly, hands folded together. 

"Please, if you would," Basch says, taking a step closer to Lili's side. She can feel him just barely brush her arm. 

"Alright, please hold on Miss." She can feel one of Mr. Prilig's hands leave her, if only for a moment. "And for your, Sir?" 

"I'll be able to see just fine, thank you," Roderich's replies politely. She can just imagine him with his hands behind his back. 

"Then let's begin. Please follow me, Ms." Mr. Prilig gently pulls her along, stopping only so that he can open the door. When they enter the next room goosebumps raise along her legs and arms, a chill settling in. She's lead to what she assumes to be the middle of the room before he lets go of her, the door sounding shut behind them. There's the sound of Mr. Prilig's long tail dragging against the floor along with the click of his claws as he shuffles around. 

"Start with a deep breath or two. Center yourself and then begin. The wall's right in front of you, so be careful," It's strange how completely Mr. Prilig's tone changes, from being cordial to nearly deadpan with it's clarity. She does as he says, taking a deep breath and then another, filling her lungs to the brink before emptying them.

Then she raises her hands, taking a step forward into the room with them extended in front of her. With another step her hands meet the wall, sliding against smooth surfaces until her hand meets a small, smooth pebble like surface. She slides her fingers around it for a moment, trying to think of what it could possibly be, when something akin to a shock makes her hands leap from it. It runs right beneath her fingernails all the way to her chest just like if someone had closed a door on them.

It hurts enough that she almost squeaks, fingers throbbing and chest suddenly spiking to life with a renewed energy. Only then does she start to feel a pull, her hands gliding over crystals and odd materials that send painful little zings to the pit of her chest until finally her hands pass over something long, cracked, and right. 

"This," she says, feeling a warm heat licking through her fingertips, as though she's holding a sparkler too closely. The pull is strong and all encompassing and she knows off the bat that it's going to be the bulk of her wand. 

"How much?" Mr. Prilig asks, after some initial writing. She doesn't even have to think about it really, her magic speaking for her.

"All of it," she replies, her fingers studying it mindlessly. The bark is rough beneath her fingers, giving away that she's definitely touching wood. 

"Continue," Mr. Prilig's voice gives away nothing. She doesn't want to move away, dreading the little shocks that are to come, but she plunders onward. There's still distinct little threads pulling her by her fingertips, sending her all over the room, until she passes over something that has that familiar warmth again.

"This too. A lot of it." She feels like she's in a trance almost, touching the roughness of the crystal for a moment before her other hand reaches out almost magnetically, grabbing onto something nearby that feels just like a stone in comparison to the other crystal. It's not as hot either, just a little buzz beneath her fingers. 

"And this. Some of it... Not as much as the last one." It's definitely meant for her though, she just knows somehow. From behind her, she thinks she hears someones shoes scuffle. 

"Just a little?" Mr. Prilig asks, still scratching away notes. 

"No. Like uhm, not a bit, but some." It sounds even bad to her ears, but it's not something that she can put a number on. Mr. Prilig hums, deep and low like a rumble, giving her the OK to move on. 

The last piece is definitely the hardest to find, leaving her standing in a particular spot in the room, grappling at the wall like a rock climber who doesn't know how to start the climb. It feels like it's a miracle that one of her hands finally brushes by it, sending a sharp rush of heat licking down her spine. She clings to it immediately, thumb brushing around it's odd shape.

"This one, definitely. Not as much as the last material though." She pauses, fingers rubbing around the rim of it like a barely warm cigarette bud. "Just enough." 

"Just enough?" Mr. Prilig asks, tone bone dry. It doesn't bother her in the slightest, though she feels like it should maybe. 

"Yes. Does that make sense?" She almost feels bad about how vague she's being, but she doesn't know any other way to phrase it. 

"Perfect sense." Mr. Prilig's tone is clipped at the ends. She stands there for a moment, searching inside of herself only to come back with empty hands. 

"I'm done." She drops her hands down to her sides, head turning a fraction as if to make sure the coast is clear. There's only a numbness throughout her chest though, like something's gone dormant again. 

"Are you sure?" Mr. Prilig scratches away at his papers, before there's the sound of something snapping shut with a finality. 

"Yes." With that, she's lead out of the room by his guiding hands and they're back into the world of the living with the cold shut behind them tight. She's directed to sit again, Mr. Prilig pulling the black cloth from her eyes. The light of the day is almost violent, making her earlier headache tear open again in her temple. 

"First I'll give you an estimate on how long it'll take, then we can go over the materials you picked, if you would like," Mr. Prilig prattles off, tone all jovial again as he moves to sit at his desk while Basch gets out his coin purse at the same time. 

"That sounds good, thank you," Basch replies, looking at the bill Mr. Prilig's written down while scooping out coins into the palm of his hand. He signs another paper or two, hands over the money, and Mr. Prilig looks even more pleased than before if it's possible. He definitely has a self assured, satisfied aura. Loosely, she wonders how much Basch had to fork out cause of her. 

"I assure you, you've picked the best wand makers in Tranquillen," Mr. Prilig slithers, tongue flickering out as he goes over a few sheets of papers and scratches some things down, "Miss Zwingli's wand should be done in three weeks time. We'll give you a call then." 

"Now, as for the materials your wand's going to be made out of. You selected three materials on top of the base material." Pulling out a large pamphlet and unfolding it, Mr. Prilig begins to circle materials rapidly from the list, scribbling down notes as he goes on. It takes only a moment despite the size of the pamphlet, as he seems to be well acquainted with it. 

"Your wand, like all wands, will be special to you and be supportive in areas you lack. I'd say though, in my professional opinion, what's going to make your wand unique is most likely it's size. It's going to be on the bulkier side." Mr. Prilig's head rocks back and forth in a jerky so-so motion, gesturing quite wide with his hands. "And it's going to have quite a lot of yellow apatite dispersed throughout it, with some unakite jasper, and a sprinkle of red beryl." His bony, almost talon like hands rub together in a sprinkling motion before he hands her the large pamphlet that's been marked in slim red circles and notes.

"Otherwise though, I'd say the over all feeling of your wand is..." he regards her for a moment, looking at her as if appraising an oddity of a gem. He does it with such plain and clear ease that she feels like she's been seen through completely. "Encouraging." He seems satisfied with the answer, lost in thought for a moment as he pins her down with his ever changing eyes. 

Roderich shuffles, looking ready to say something, and Mr. Prilig's body jump starts again, head twisting and body straightening up where it once was lax. "The materials you chose though, I'd say would be fitting for either a fire or earth affinity witch. If you have any questions over the materials, they can be found in this pamphlet and if you still have a question, you can always call the shop and a helpful representative will speak with you," he does his long spiel, handing her the pamphlet and a few other papers. 

After that, there's a bit more discussion on Basch's end and the three of them thank Mr. Prilig before they take their leave. When they empty out onto the streets Lili makes sure they walk a few strides before she pipes up (she has no idea how good a lizard man's hearing is), cutting in between the chatter of Basch and Roderich who are making compelling arguments if her familiar will be earth or fire affinity. Basch seems to think fire and Roderich earth, but the latter sounds more compelling, even to her. 

"Mr. Prilig seemed like an awfully nice little lizard man until we went into the shop's other room, don't you think?" She's busy unfolding the pamphlet that he gave to her and refolding it just where she wants to read. She only looks up when Basch and Roderich start laughing together, her cheeks turning red as a smile barely pulls at her mouth. 

"What? What did I say?" She looks to Roderich who's still trying to swallow his chuckles before turning to Basch, who's more put together. He licks his lips for a moment before responding, eyes looking upward as if he's storing this memory away for later.

"Lili," he starts, saying her name slowly as to make the point clear, "Mr. Prilig is not a lizard. He's a Oligodragono, a descendant of dragons." In the background, Roderich just laughs harder, gripping at his sides despite the bags weighing down his arms.

"Ol - ol - what?" her voice goes high with laughter despite her own small amount of embarrassment. He really did just look like a big lizard. 

"Oligodragono and he was getting a little testy in the backroom because it's his nature. They're kind can feel the urge to get defensive over what they consider to be their hoards." Basch explains between his own huffs of laughter, the group of them ignoring the occasional stares from those who pass by that their behavior earns them.


	9. Give It A Wave!

After the first week of moving in and the shopping madness, Lili’s life seems to finally straighten out for awhile. For a week or two Basch and Roderich just let her adjust and do as she sees fit, which means exploring the house in more detail, playing with her telescope at night, watching TV, and other fun stuff. 

In a household run by magic there are very few chores to do and even fewer considering she doesn’t have a wand. It’s weird because she’s always had work to do no matter where she’s lived, but it’s certainly not a change that’s unwelcome. The most she has to do is keep her own space clean. When she brings this up to Basch he barks out a laugh and puts her in charge of keeping the peace lily in the living room alive, which she takes very seriously and names it Cinderella shortly after. 

After those two initial weeks though, Basch buckles down and starts to teach her serious magic. If she starts studying now and takes a few government sanctioned tests at the school, she’ll be able to catch onto the ninth grade, a whole year back from where she should be. It makes her bitter to think about it, so she tries not to and instead focuses on her studies. 

Basch is a great teacher and covers most of the general subjects with her easily, including some of the harder portions including math (why do witches need to know math she wonders) and potions, but he can’t cover all of it. For the portions that he can’t cover, there’s Mr. Laurinaitis, or as he likes to be called, Toris. 

He’s a college student and apparently was one of the best in his high school class, though he doesn’t like to brag. He’s strict, but polite and terribly kind; most importantly though, he makes an excellent teacher, filling in the gaps where Lili struggles. He’s even learning to be a teacher at the academy he attends, so he’s really the perfect fit for her. 

His familiar on the other hand, is not. He’s a peacock, with bright beautiful plumage and an air about him that absolutely demands attention and entertainment. He rarely attends their tutoring sessions and when he does, he ends up causing such a ruckus or distracting Lili so much that him and Roderich usually have some kind of familiar stare down if Toris doesn’t reign him in. Lili actually thinks he’s kind of fun, but knows that he’s… detrimental to her studies. 

Thankfully, none of the first year classes seems very difficult. They’re mostly dedicated to average things that she recognizes, like history, math, and literature. Where she falters is the witch-ier subjects that should be common place to the average witch. There’s certain herbs she has to learn the name of, certain crystal properties that she has to memorize. Thankfully though, she’s a quick learner with most subjects, or at least that’s what Basch and Toris tell her. 

Before she knows it, two weeks buzz by and suddenly her wand is on the dining room table. It’s wrapped up in a neat little package with an extravagant almost gaudy amount of lace and ribbon. She spots it just as she gets up in the morning, before she’s even had a glass of orange juice or brushed her teeth. Basch and Roderich perk up when they see her, both sitting in their usual spots. 

“Want to start classes a little early?” Basch says, with a smirk, knowing full well that she’s more than ready for this. They’ve been going over some starter spells for awhile now, practicing the hand movements with numerous things in lieu of a wand, such as pencils, pieces of chalk, and her toothbrush. She grins at him and nods, scuttling her way over to her package and making her way to sit next to Basch, Roderich joining them on her other side. 

She tries to be gentle with the wrapping instead of tearing into it like her Christmas presents, if only because the moment feels important, like it shouldn’t be rushed. She delicately pulls all of the straps and knots apart until she’s finally reached the lid of the box, one pull away from seeing her wand. 

“Ready?” Roderich asks, when she’s paused and got her hand on the top of the box. 

“More than ready,” she replies, popping off the lid with a smooth slide and little suctioned pop. Inside, her wand is lined with a deep rich velvet, perfectly lined against to ensure it’s safety during the shipping process. 

It looks so different from Basch’s sleek and polished wand, that she nearly gets whiplash. It looks as though the dragon folk who made it snapped any old branch from a tree and encrusted it with crystals that grow up and down it like mold, fitting into it’s creases. At some parts its nearly wide as her wrists and it’s longer than her forearm, a bulky gnarled thing with bumps and ridges galore. 

Even the colors of the crystals clash; yellow apatite swallows a side of the wand, which looks kind of like vomit next to the dark green and red of the unakite sprinkled throughout it. The red beryl looks like a bad after thought added onto it and all she can think of is the one word Mr. Prilig used to describe it. 

Encouraging. 

After a few seconds of looking at the wand, she quickly slides back on the top of the box, enclosing it in it’s velvety coffin. Basch and Roderich are instantly consoling her, even though she’s trying to keep a blank face. She knows she should feel grateful that she even has a wand, that she’s learning magic at all, but she just wishes that she could catch a break. It feels as though magic doesn’t want her to like even if she does, like it’s a stubborn pomegranate that she has to smack the seeds out of. 

“Lili, I know it doesn’t look delicate, but that’s good. It’s unique to you and an Oligodragono would never make a bad wand,” Basch lectures her and Roderich chimes in to agree. 

“It doesn’t matter what your wand looks like anyways. To care about that kind of thing is stuck up, right Basch?”

“Right,” Basch agrees. Part of Lili wants to argue with them because wands are kind of important if you want to look cool or cute or just, acceptable. Most of the witches that she reads about how beautiful wands, slender pretty things like enchanted icicles or dark rich wood. It just lumps her in with the outcast crowd again. 

She’d settle for a simple stick if it meant getting away from this thing, but she sucks it up after a moment and wordlessly opens up the box again and takes it into her hand at a part where she can wrap her hand around it solidly. 

“How does it feel?” Roderich asks and Basch nods, urging on her response. She’s almost too shocked to reply, because of how shockingly good it feels in her hand; it almost makes her frustrated with it. Electric crawls up her arm when she holds it and she feels charged, grounded, and light as air all at once. 

“Good. Can I try lighting a candle?” She asks, bouncing the wand gently up and down in her hand. Roderich and Basch share a smile before they both agree to it, yanking on their shoes and taking her to a small clearing in their little back yard. Outside with them they bring two candles, one for demonstration and one for her to try with. It’s one of the simplest spells in the book, but Basch often says that you never know when it comes to breaking a wand in for the first time. 

After laying down a few wards, “Just in case,” Basch says, they stand in front of the small outdoor table, facing each other and their candles. “Alright, follow after me.” 

Basch gives a clean and fluid demonstration, snapping his wrist just in time with his voice, “Ignium.” The candle instantly lights, producing a suddenly strong and steady flame before calming down and reducing size. She’s seen him do it a thousand times, so often in fact that she feels like she’s got his movements perfectly recorded in her head.

“Go ahead,” he says, giving her permission. It makes her blood boil in her veins, the electric feeling of her wand running up and down her arms so intensely that she swears she can hear it, like it’s a fuse about to blow. She’s so ready for this, she’s past ready for this; she can feel it. 

She does the motion perfectly, flitting her wrist at the exact moment that she says the word and feels this insurmountable feeling rise up in the pit of her chest like a tsunami at it’s peak or the first quiet trickles of an avalanche. 

The candles does not light and her heart drops. 

“Try it again?” Basch sounds confused, bringing his hand up to chin as he thinks. She tries it again, perfectly fluid and in time with her words. “Again?” Basch says, past confused and moving onto amazement. It’s starting to make her nervous, panic piling into her stomach in an abrupt rush. What if she’s not actually a witch? What if she can’t do magic? She does the spell again and then again.

“I don’t know what’s wrong, she’s doing it perfectly,” Basch says more to Roderich than to her, but she can’t hear them, a hot pressure building in the pit of her stomach as she repeats the spell, again, again, and again, until she’s getting a little sloppy with her inner turmoil, until the tsunami’s crashing down until - 

She screams when it happens, a hot white burst exploding from her wand and lights the insides of her veins on fire. The candle explodes at the same time that Roderich yells something, voice frighteningly serious and deep with his urgency. She can hear Basch curse over the sound of what sounds like a fuse being blown and it’s all over in a split second, the air still charged and heavy with static. 

“Lili!” Basch and Roderich shout at the same time, going to her side instantly. She’s backed up a few feet from where she was, blown back. 

“Are you okay?” Roderich’s patting her down, the same moment that Basch is snatching her wand from out of her hand, which she quickly realized is on fire. With a quick snap of his wrist, it’s blown out, but the damage has still been done. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine, but my wand!” She cries out, looking at the gnarled pitiful thing. It’s now charred and black at one end, a gray gradient crawling up it’s length. The wand she cared so little about she now feels incredibly protective over, her heart aching at the sight of it. Basch curses something thick in German at the sight of it, while Roderich is just holding her close out of relief that she’s okay. 

“I’ve ruined it…” She despairs, tears building in her eyes that she wipes away in frustration. “I’m a terrible witch,” she mumbles into her hands, shaking her head. She can feel Roderich’s grip on her loosen, his panic subsiding. 

“Lili… This wasn’t a mistake. Your wand may look different now, but it’s just taking a preferred form. These kinds of things happen.” Roderich’s gentle, his hand easing up and down her back and soothing her hushed breathing. Basch still seems like he’s ready to pounce on the next danger that presents itself, looking around their surroundings among the chips of glass and wax. 

“It’s not suppose to happen though! It was an easy spell… It was…” her voice trailing out out miserably as she tightly screws her eyes shut. She shakes her head, letting Roderich pull her into his side, crying into his chest. 

“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is you’re safe,” Basch says from his place at the ground, before getting up and rubbing a hand up and down her back.

It does matter though, because she wants to cry and scream and kick herself in the teeth. It matters cause she can’t do anything right and she hates it, hates her inability, hates herself.


	10. ...

He can feel it, like the trunk of a tree splitting apart from pressure, like pushing out from under ice to kiss the warmth of the sun. Thunder crackles in the distance and he pushes any feelings of happiness down like a cigarette bud into an ashtray, the bitter smoke and feelings being all there is left. 

He doesn’t wonder anymore. Refuses to.


	11. All Work and No Play

She gets over it, but she doesn’t really get over it either.

For the rest of that day she holes up in her room and throws herself a pity party that lasts until dinner, when she trudges out. Roderich and Basch make her favorite meal, but even the food seems kind of soured. Regardless, she eats it and puts on a smile for them. 

Of course her using her wand again is inevitable and what Roderich said about it’s preferred form rings true. The next time she casts a spell, it goes without a hitch, easing the tension of everyone in the room. Her wand even feels better than before, not as chaotic and wild as the first time that she picked it up. 

But there’s still that feeling of failure and that shock of disappointing her parents that just won’t rub away. It makes her drill even harder into herself during her studies, coloring and rewriting her notes and making flashcard after flashcard to flip through until the words sound like gibberish. She’s determined more than anything to make her parents proud and to prove her worth.

-

In between her endless studying, they still go out as a family often. Basch makes it a point to when he sees her nearly falling asleep with her head in a textbook, dragging her out sometimes just to get fresh air and a cup of tea. So it’s not like she’s totally chained herself to her desk. 

There are nights where she disregards studies completely to sit with Basch at her telescope and stare at the stars until they go blurry from the sleep in her eyes. Other nights she plays simple duets on the piano with Roderich until she starts making lazy mistakes and he sends her off to bed. Sometimes it’s so good, having this family life, that it makes her forget about all of the bad things for a little while. 

Like her exams coming in November. She feels like there’s always a chance that she could fail them, even though Basch and Toris often ease her doubts and encourage her. If she stays on the track that she is now, then there’s no way surely that she could fail, Basch tells her. But then she thinks about the candle incident and her face goes pale. 

Thinking about her familiar ceremony is even worse. She’s almost certainly going to be the oldest one in a crowd of excited thirteen year old’s wearing their fanciest garb. It kind of feels like she’s busting into a middle school prom, trying to fit in where she clearly doesn’t. Just thinking about the stares she’ll get gives her shivers, but even worse is imagining her familiar rejecting her, or just being nonexistent. 

It’s the one subject that she feels guilty studying, reading over happy ceremony stories and legends until she nearly gets sick. She can’t knock the idea that her familiar is like some sappy advertisement, waiting for her out in the cold like a sad dog with droopy eyes. At one point she was excited to have a familiar, sure, but now all she can feel is anxiety when she thinks about how she’s indirectly hurt them. 

But, it’s okay, at least for a little while. It’s still February. Her exams in November are months away, so she still has time. 

She tries not to think about how it’s like being in the foster care system again. 

-

In April when they start to get more into spell work, things start getting more difficult. 

The complexity of the spells isn’t an issue. She drills herself too often on the wand movements, the proper pronunciation of things, the timing, and the feeling of a certain spell to flunk it up. Rather, it’s that she can feel fatigue set in when Basch looks as though he’s hardly broken a sweat at all. 

The bright heavy burn of her limbs and that sensation of feeling breathless is something she’s well acquainted with, but to feel magically drained is another sensation all together. The first few spells she does she feels like an overflowing pot, dripping with excess, but as time goes on she finds herself scrapping the bottom of the pot more often, scraping the last bits of her reserves with her fingernails. It’s frustrating when Basch tells her not to push herself when she feels she needs to in order to survive. 

There are too many nights where she goes to bed feeling like she’s scrubbed herself raw with her fingers, a headache pounding in her head. 

-

It’s at the tail end of July when she works herself sick after practicing a rudimentary water spell.

It’s one of those spells that everybody has to learn at some point or another because of how valuable it is. In the case of an emergency where drinking water isn’t available, it’s crucial to know especially if you’re stranded alone. When performed correctly it a thing stream of fresh clean water should come from the tip of one’s wand, similar to how a drinking fountain would work. 

But water is one of the elements that she struggles with, the feeling of the spell elusive and always out of her reach. She’d been practicing it for three days with Basch under his supervision, each time the spell accumulating at the tip of her wand in dribbles of saltwater.   
She’d tasted the sharp tang of saltwater so many times that her heart grows heavy even with the smell of it, the taste a gross lump of spit in the back of her throat no matter how many times she washes it out. 

On the third night of practice, she had decided she couldn’t look Basch in the face after failing again. She could imagine his lips pursed and the heaviness in his shoulders while he studied her form and it almost made her sicker than the taste of the seawater itself. 

She tests it in the shower late at night until she’s swamped with nausea, fingers scrapping into herself for the last bits of magic until it starts to hurt. The first thing she notices is the crawl of pain up her dominant arm, just a barely there tingle. When a pounding headache suddenly slams in her left temple she decides it’s time to admit failure and to get out of the shower.

She turns off the faucet and exchanges her wand for a towel, placing it on the nearby sink. Still standing in the tub, she dries her long dripping hair before wrapping herself up in her towel with her eyes closed. Her headache had been so sharp and immediate that she’s finding it hard to ground herself, a little dizzy. She can’t remember the last time she had felt this sick, thinking back to her early childhood. 

Then when she’s getting out of the shower, her foot somehow slides beneath her when she picks picks up the other one, half in and half out when she loses balance. She grapples for a support that simply isn’t there with how the bathtub is standing free from any of the walls in the room, but she manages to catch onto the shower curtain - which immediately gives way, the cheap plastic rungs snapping under her weight in a serious of loud pops. 

With a sharp screech she’s falling out of the tub, one leg twisted underneath her awkwardly and her side slamming into the floor as she drops with the curtain. It’s all over in a second, leaving her in an unsightly heap, her ankle throbbing and nausea suddenly making her throat hot. 

“Lili?” She can hear Roderich suddenly outside the bathroom door, knocking on it in a panic. Her vision is swimming though as she pulls her leg out from under her, the hot water of the bath suddenly making her skin feverish and cold at the same time. As she moves another one of the plastic rungs of the shower curtain snap and although it doesn’t effect her, it has Roderich bursting into the room with a quick spell. 

When he opens the door the hot air in the room seeps out like it’s vacuum sealed, the cold hitting her skin in a way that just makes her nausea stronger. 

“Lili!” Roderich’s dropping to his knees, his face pale as he helps her to sit up. “Are you hurt? What happened?” He’s brushing the away some of her long hair that’s wetly stuck to her face, pausing to hold the back of his hand to her forehead after he notices the warmth of her skin. 

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” she doesn’t so much as say it as she does breathe out the words in a tumble, like she’s afraid that moving her tongue will make her gag. Roderich starts to help her to the toilet in an instant, helping keep her towel snug around herself and pulling back her long hair when she shakily lifts up the toilet seat. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he murmurs to her as he gently rubs her back, “just let it come.” 

She can’t remember if deep breaths help or if you’re suppose to hold your breath to keep the nausea away, but no matter what she does she just starts to feel worse and worse. She’s sticky from the shower and her head is throbbing, but it’s a relief to not feel her hair sticking to her like a second skin. 

What does her in is her disgust on hanging onto the toilet bowl, her arms touching its side and hangs clinging to it. The imagery alone and breathing in the smell of it, has her back arching and stomach convulsing, bile making its way up her throat. 

It’s been a long time since she’s thrown up, but the sensation hasn’t changed. She doesn’t feel in control of herself, body lurching and scrunching lack a cat hacking something up. It feels unnatural and disgusting and it just churns her on even more, making her gag up the last tiniest bits of the contents of her stomach. She feels so intensely in that moment that she forgets that Roderich is even touching her until he speaks. 

“It’s alright, I’ve got you.” 

How he manages to press a kiss into her hair after she’s thrown up and still smells of vomit is beyond her completely, but she’s glad for it anyways. 

-

Because Basch is out today doing some kind of work related conference at the school, Roderich is the one who helps her brush her teeth, get dressed, and piles her into bed. He takes her temperature and brings her water, medicine, and anything else she asks for. The good thing about Roderich is that unlike Basch, he’s better at knowing when she just needs silence. 

He’s diligent about keeping the towel on her head nice and cool, dipping it in ice water when it ts too moist. Every time she opens up her eyes, drifting in and out of sleep, he’s there, sitting by her bedside with a book open. 

“Does Basch know?” She asks, voice a mangled thickly webbed thing. She has to clear her voice once or twice before she can speak. Roderich doesn’t smile as much as he just turns up one corner of his lips, closing the book on his lap. She wonders for a second how he can read when it’s so dim in the room, until she reminds herself that he is a familiar. 

“Basch knows.” 

She sighs, shifting her legs around to a colder place on the sheets. She’s dripping with so much sweat that she knows that the sheets will have to be washed after all of this. She feels like a snow man melting in a sauna. 

“You don’t have to talk about it now, but it’s a conversation you’re going to have to have eventually, with either me or him.” Roderich crosses and then uncrosses his legs. She’s glad it’s so dark. It makes it easier to have this conversation. 

“I’m sorry,” is what she starts with. She feels so stupid saying it, knowing that this situation is all her fault. If she hadn’t pushed herself so hard she wouldn’t be lying here, ankle swollen and body sweating excessively, her parents thinking that she has some kind of problem. Only, maybe she does. 

“I just…” the words die out in her mouth for a moment, “I just wanted to make you guys proud. I’m worried that I’m going to end up failing again.” her eyes are blurring as she says it, hot tears trickling effortlessly down her cheeks. She can’t summon the strength to hiccup or cry breathlessly, instead just letting the tears come. 

“Lili… Are you still upset about the ignium spell?” Roderich asks carefully, placing a gentle hand on top of hers. She holds it tight. 

“Yes,” she admits, but this is really just scraping the tip of the iceberg. She’s afraid of being a disappointment, afraid of the ceremony, the tests, of losing them somehow. Part of her is still waiting to go to the next foster home, for when the curtain call comes and she’s shifted onto the next scene. Everything is weighing down on her ability to perform magic it feels like and she’s struggling to do things as simple as getting out of the shower and light candles. 

“Lili, listen to me. What matters most to us is that you’re trying your best and you’re already doing exactly that. We’re already so tremendously proud of you.” He squeezes her hand back tight. “We love you so much and nothing can change that.” 

“I love you too,” she didn’t think she could, but she’s crying hard now, blubbering and letting out gross sniffles as Roderich pulls her into his chest. She couldn’t have asked for a better dad, she thinks.

-

Later that night when Basch gets home, she knows that Roderich must have had a long talk with him before he knocks at her door and slips into her room. She feels so little all of the sudden, listening to his boots come across the floor. She can’t look at him, instead focusing on the little buzzing lamp by her bedside.

He sits at the edge of her bed with a deep sigh through his nose, that tells her he’s had a long day. 

“Are you upset?” The words bubble out of her before she can help it, tears making the light in front of her a wobbly blur. 

“Of course I am. You hurt yourself,” Basch replies honestly, but he doesn’t sound upset in the way that she was so scared he would be. It makes her cry even more despite that she’s so tired. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” she starts to snivel again, covering her face with her hands. Basch is gets up to pull her into his arms, hugging her tight enough that she feels like she’s not falling apart. 

“I know you didn’t mean to. It’s okay.” His words just make her cry harder until she’s spent, drowsy against his chest and face sticky with tears. He holds her through the entirety of it and she feels so loved that it makes everything okay for a little while; she allows it to be. She’s not afraid anymore when she drifts off to sleep, surrounded by the moon, stars, and cloudless night.

-

For a little while it becomes a rule that she has to give Basch her wand after she’s done studying and practicing. Toris is informed of this rule and also has to abide by it, though she doesn’t know if he understands the extent of the situation. She doesn’t ask and Toris doesn’t treat her any differently for it, which is fine by her. 

By the middle of August she’s back to having full access to her wand anyways, but she’s given a warning too. The next time it happens, if it happens, she’ll have to go without it for even longer. It makes her more careful and aware of her limits and how she feels when she’s doing spell work, determined to not put herself is such a sorry state again. 

When October rolls around, Basch goes out of his way to take her to the school grounds and to show her around. 

The school, simply put, is utterly massive. It makes the Zwingli house look like a dollhouse with it’s massive dormitories but it’s map is surprisingly easy to follow. It has countless classrooms and the library is so massive that it has two levels and even one of those push-able stair cases so you can reach certain books. 

It reminds her of Tranquillen with how it’s so tightly woven with nature. There are several spacious court yards throughout the estate that have ponds and little miniature waterfalls where pixies play, jumping from lily pad to lily pad. It also seems that the architects who built the school built it around nature instead of on top of it. As such, there are many places throughout the building where thick trees stand, sprouting up and through the roof. 

Even when she looks up in some portions of the building she can see through the roof like it’s not even there, rain splattering against nearly invisible glass. In certain halls vines grow up and down the walls completely smothering them and there’s just flowers, everywhere, as a preferred form of decoration. 

It’s fun to look around certainly, but she goes cold when Basch points out where she’ll be taking her tests in November and where she’ll potentially be situated in the girls dormitories. It’s expected for students to stay at the school for the school year but they’re free to stay for the summer if they want. In fact, while they walk around, there’s quite a few students that stop to say hello to Basch. They don’t bump into any teachers which she’s kind of thankful for. She doesn’t want to be known as Mr. Zwingli’s daughter, though it’s already shaping up to look that way. 

The most thrilling part of the trip is seeing the mammoth clearing in which the ceremony is held. It’s reminds her of a colosseum except it’s not a building but rather a depression in the earth with earth shaped slabs for people to sit on instead of concrete. It goes in a wide circle, connecting all the way around surrounding the spot where the ritual takes place. The runes there are written in some kind of crystal that reflects the sky and are far too complex for her to read. 

“Because I’m a teacher here, Roderich and I will actually be seated first. We’re going to try and snag a seat to the left, over there.” Basch points it out the spot to her as they reach the bottom of what is more or less the pit. The air here feels clearer here and although it’s a just a grassy field, there’s a certain feeling of peace that won’t leave her. It should be a place that’s filled with anxiety and fear for her, but it’s just a thought at the back of her mind. It’s only a few months away, but it still feels too far to bother her right now in this moment. 

“Basch?” She asks and he turns towards her, wind ruffling his blonde hair. 

“Yes?” 

“What’s the ceremony feel like?” It’s something she’s been afraid to ask, but now that she’s here, she feels like she can say anything. Once the words leave her it’s like a weight has been lifted off her chest. Basch goes quiet for a moment, hands disappearing into his pockets as he looks out at the crystal runes. They’re so blue they could be mistaken for shimmering water. 

“It’s a little different for everyone. Cutting your palm will hurt of course, but after that…” he trails off for a moment, looking as though he’s lost in a memory. She’s quiet, giving him time to think. 

“It’s like looking at a hard math problem you don’t understand and then getting the answer from somebody else,” he looks so wise and deep in thought when he says it that Lili feels bad for immediately going,

“What?” Out of all the descriptions she’s heard of the ceremony, with the vivid (often romantic) imagery of two souls connecting to each other by a red thread, she’s never heard described so simply. Or mathematically. 

In the end, Basch just simply shrugs off her confused look with a smile and says, 

“You’ll see.”


	12. Growing Pains

Every day she marks off her calender, the worry chips at her a little more. 

The 10th, the 15th, the 26th, the 30th. 

When she flips the calender over to November and sees the picture displaying a big fat smiling pumpkin, she feels the urge to punch it in the face and weep at the same time. She misses the July puppy and the big February hearts. Anything’s better than the big fat smiling pumpkin of November. 

-

The night before testing, she falls in out and of sleep, waking up periodically in the morning only to frantically check her alarm clock. Every time she checks it, a few hours slip by. Eventually she wakes up exactly nine minutes before her alarm’s suppose to go off, watching the black handle go in circles until the last second. She turns off the alarm before it’s even suppose to ring, clambering out of bed with a weightless exhaustion in her bones. 

With all the dread filling her stomach it’s hard to eat or keep a positive attitude, but she manages somehow anyways. She has two waffles, three slices of bacon, and an entire glass of orange juice which leaves her feeling grounded instead of that weird weightlessness she felt beforehand. 

An hour and a half later, she’s filed into a room with a bunch of other kids. It’s a mixed bag of all different kinds, some of the kids older, some younger. She sits behind a younger boy with bright blonde hair, who boasts about how he can’t possibly fail during the break in which they’re served fruit slices and cookies. She tries not to pay attention to him, but it’s hard not to when he’s one of the first to hand back in his tests and fidgets the rest of the period. 

She’s not the last person to finish but close to it, sweating as she reviews the answers that’s she’s picked and how she’s come to certain conclusions. Her eyes trace back over paragraphs that she’s picked apart with her pencil and smothered in commentary and little notes. 

When everyone’s turned in their packets and their protector dismisses them, Lili feels as though she can breathe again for the first time in months. Her legs feel like jello when she walks out of the classroom and out of the building, smiling when she sees Basch and Roderich sitting on a nearby bench waiting for her. They both stand up to meet her halfway and she resists the urge to run to them, feeling as though she’s leaving some big billowing monster behind her. 

“Well?” Basch asks, ever so brief, as if the two of them didn’t just ease all the tension in her shoulders. 

“How did you do?” Roderich finishes the sentence for him. They’re both smiling at her and she feels like she did good, that she recognized everything, but she knows that there’s a few questions that she missed too. Instead of dragging on about every little thing she settles for the short answer. 

“Good, I think. Can we go out for cake now?” She asks, the exhaustion slipping into her voice. Basch ruffles her hair and Roderich does one of those little nose huffs of laughter.

They do in fact go out for cake. 

-

Early December her test scores come back and she refuses to open them at first because she’s so nervous. Roderich and Basch let her avoid them through breakfast but after dinner, Basch and Roderich call her into the living room to open them with her. Even just holding the envelope in her hands makes her feel like she’s going to combust, but she manages to summon the willpower after a few minutes of their urging to finally tear into the envelope. 

She completely disregards the slender note at the top of the paper to look at the grid portion of the letter where she can see her letter grade and the percentages next to them. A grin threatens to split her face in half when Roderich and Basch bolster her confidence, Basch hooking an arm around her shoulders and Roderich squeezing and shaking her knee. 

“Lili you did so, so good!” Roderich says enthusiastically. It’s true too. She’s gotten three A’s and two B’s, one being in math. She’s been accepted into the school and for the ceremony and she’ll be starting school with the ninth graders next year. It feels like things have started to look up again since she was adopted and she couldn’t be happier. 

That night they go out to eat in some fancy little Italian restaurant that’s a little more hole in the wall. It’s got an amazing view over the ocean and they sit on the balcony together, dining by the light of the city and candles. She eats until she feels bloated and blown up like a puffer fish. 

-

Being approved for the ceremony and the ninth grade is a good thing, but the shopping that comes with it she decidedly dislikes. It’s something unavoidable because of the tradition that every child must wear their robes and a witches hat, but it doesn’t make her feel cute or special as it does awkward. 

They’re shopping considerably early, as most people like to wait until late December or early June to make sure that their kids fit their robes, but Lili wouldn’t have it any other way. There’s no rush of customers coming into stores, the employees are less irritable, and she doesn’t feel like she has to suck in her breath just to squeeze down an aisle. 

Admittedly though, she is excited to get a real witches hat. It’s something she’s dreamed about since she was a child, so when she walks into the speciality hat’s store her eyes go wide as dinner plates looking at all of the different options. Like any store, there’s an obvious divide between hats that are of real quality and those that look as those they’re only meant to be worn once. It reminds her of a bridal store, though she’s never been to one. 

There’s one that looks as though it’s made of glass but is soft to the touch, the insides of enchanted it to look as those its sloshing around with koi fish. Another has candle wax dripping all along it’s brim, but when touched the candles don’t even create the slightest heat. Many are a traditional black with some kind of twist or detail that makes it stand out, such as the material being velvety or leather, or having some kind of pattern. 

She’s holding a hat that’s tie dyed, flickering and swirling with different colors when she spots something twinkling out of the corner of her eye. When she turns to look at it, she can feel her heart stutter in her chest and she knows that she’s found the one. Almost magnetically she places the tie dyed hat back, walking quickly over to her find. 

It’s traditionally black with a wide brim like most witch’s hats. The top of it curls in on itself a little bit, differing from the popular style of the time that’s a perfectly pointed cone. It’s perfectly soft to the touch, but what really makes it unique is it’s ribbon. It’s dark purple in color and simple, dropping off the side of the hat. What makes it sparkle are the petite silver bands wrapped around the ribbon that also trickle off the side, dangling a little star and moon. 

She’s sliding it on before she even looks at the price she likes it so much, turning to see her parents at the end of the aisle with their backs turned towards her. Basch seems busy looking at a price tag or two, while Roderich is examining the material of another hat. 

“Guys!” She calls over and they turn around, surprise flitting across their features before they both grows sappy smiles. She poses a little, turning her head and letting the little silver strings dangle and spin while she keeps a hand on the brim. “What do you think?” 

“I think that’s definitely the one,” Basch says, coming closer and twirling one of the little stars in between his fingers. She looks to Roderich who nods. 

“You look like a charming young witch,” Roderich compliments her and she can feel her face get hot. It really does make her feel pretty. 

To make matters worse, the old lady with bottle thick glasses who runs the shop absolutely insists that she doesn’t take off the hat even for purchase she looks so fitting in it. It makes her feel a lot less insecure about the ceremony and everything surrounding it; she even wears the hat out onto the street.

Going to her fitting appointment for her school robes isn’t as fun but it’s certainly interesting. They have to take something like a magical elevator up to the top of the tree in Tranquillen, walking on roads carved out of the huge branches of the tree to get to the shop. There’s a lot more creatures of an aerial and insect variety at the top, fluttering around where ever she looks. The breeze here is stronger than down below and she decides that it’s her favorite part of the city very quickly when she’s able to look down and see the very edges of Tranquillen where white fluffy clouds lie.

The place where she’s getting her fitting done is called MODE, in bright gold letters. Walking in is another reminder of how wealthy Basch and Roderich are, fountains dribbling gold liquid in the corner of the shop and bright red roses growing on the ceiling. She’s astounded to see that they change color in a wave every few minutes. 

The insanely high arching ceilings of the store suddenly makes sense when she sees the person at the front desk waiting to help them. Or rather, she see her legs. She has to look up the long trail of her body, all ten feet of it, to see her radiant blue eyes looking down at them. She was swathed in robes and jewels from head to toe, as if her vibrant that swept behind her went eye catching enough. She looked like a humanoid mixture of secretary bird and a peacock all in one and all she should could think upon seeing one was that Feliks, Toris’s boyfriend, would be insanely jealous standing next to her. 

She’s confused at first with how they’ll possibly do her fitting until the platform that she’s standing on, surrounded by mirrors and all, lifts up after her fitter casts a quick spell. It catches her so off guard that she’s caught off balance, laughing and giving her flustered thanks to the beautiful woman who’ll be doing her fitting. Her measurements are done so fast that she almost feels like they weren’t done at all, the soft measuring tape gently tugging on her the only real indication that it had happened. 

Once they leave there, they go to pick out her ceremonial outfit. The shops that they go for this aren’t nearly as fancy as MODE, but they still have that expensive feel despite having no liquid gold fountains. 

Roderich encourages her to go a little outside of her comfort zone, so she settles on a dark purple dress with straps. It goes right to her knees so she feels comfortable in it and it has a black sash in the middle that matches the ribbon look of her hat. For her robes she settles on just something plain, black, and inexpensive despite Basch offering to buy her much more eccentric, flashier ones. 

She picks simple black flats that are cheap and suit her well to match. When she was younger she borrowed one of her older foster sister’s high heeled shoes to play outside and fell on her face, the heels digging into the ground before she could make it even a yard. Needless to say, she doesn’t plan on making the same mistake as before. 

By the time that they make it home even she’s carrying bags despite Basch’s reluctance for her to carry anything, her arms weighed down by bundles of fabric wrapped up in plastic. She hangs them in her closet, squishing all of her other clothes to one side to make plenty of room for them. She places her hat on her desk on top of some of her textbooks, though for the majority of the night she ends up wearing it around the house. 

-

In preparation for the school year for the school year they actually get the students to move in their things in a time span of a week. She had always imagined that they would be doing the ceremony first and then moving in, so she’s a little shocked when Basch tells her to start prepping things for the move. 

Basch and Roderich are also moving onto campus which brings her much comfort, knowing that if she really needs them all she needs to do is go and ask for them at the teacher’s quarters. She’s much luckier than most kids, who get a phone call or the occasional visit or gift in the mail certainly. 

She doesn’t know why Basch even asks her to pack at all though when he makes the moving process so simple. He moves most of the things in her bedroom to the side with Roderich to make a large clearing on the floor, advising her to pack away all of her everyday essentials in her old suitcase before drawing a large rune on the hardwood. It takes a good thirty minutes before he clears her and Roderich out, making sure the windows are sealed shut tight and closing the door snug before he casts the spell. 

He says a few magic words and taps his wand on the door exactly three times. When he opens the door back up, her room is completely stripped and barren. She can’t find a speck of dust or dirt, like it’s been suctioned and vacuumed besides the chalk on the floor and the small bright yellow satchel on the floor. 

“Why didn’t you do this the first time I moved?” she asks, gaping at him as he picks up the little satchel with a hand. 

“You only had a suitcase,” he replies with a small smirk. 

The first time he does it the only impact it has on him is that he plucks the collar of shirt to cool down. By the time he’s done with his study and his and Roderich’s bedroom, he looks spent, sagging in one of the armchairs in the living room with Roderich who only looks a little more put together. She feels as though he may or may not have been showing off.

Wordlessly, she fixes the two of them a tall glass of water with lemon and mint each, thanking them for their help. 

After the two of them have rested for awhile, they all pack away into the car and drive up to the school. It’s a short lived drive and before she knows it, they’re in the parking lot pulling out suitcases and making their way to her dormitory. There’s quite a few people on the grounds though it’s not bad as Friday’s are Roderich tells her. Regardless of this, Basch gets stopped not only by a handful of older students, but several teachers as well, all of who greet her and Basch introduces her to. 

The most intimidating by far is the man who Basch introduces as the art teacher. He towers over her at an alarming height of what must be six feet and seven inches, but his partner is just as tall as Lili and has a glow to him that’s so warm and welcoming it almost makes you forget that he’s standing next to a literal giant. Regardless, the both of them see nice. Basch introduces them as Mr. Berwald and Tino Oxenstirena respectively, which she has to roll over her tongue a few times. 

Meeting the bestiary teacher, a tall short haired woman with a kind face, is much more pleasant. She jokes around with Lili about first day jitters, but before she goes on for too long she politely excuses herself and apologizes for holding them up. Her cheerful aura makes the large white snake that’s looped around her shoulders like a shawl almost seem nonthreatening. Almost. Basch introduces them as Ms. Irunya and Natasha Arlovskaya and notes that they have a much more sisterly relationship than the Oxenstirena couple. 

Meeting people is a little tedious, but it’s worth it when Basch and Roderich look so proud, touting her around and introducing her as their daughter. That at the very least, can bring a genuine smile to her face. 

When they finally make it to her dorm, they’re given her key by one of the busy attendants out front and trudge up all the way to the third story where her room is located. She’s lucky enough to have gotten a room at the very end which Basch swears that he had no sway over, though she’s not so sure. 

The room seems tiny and even a little dusty when she opens it up, barren of furniture with a door leading to a small bathroom on the side. Basch is quick to explain why that is though while he draws the runes of her furniture in chalk on the floor.

“Because students get familiars at thirteen and they don’t learn how to shift into humans until say, sixteen, each room needs to be able to shift to accommodate that particular familiar. This building was made with that idea in mind.” He places her yellow satchel in the middle of the room, scooting them the two of them out.

“So, if someone had a panda familiar, would bamboo grow?” She asks as Basch closes the door and performs the spell, looking up at Roderich. 

“Possibly. The bathroom may even create something like a hot spring if it suits the animal.” Before Lili can reply, Basch is opening up the door to reveal what looks like an exact replica of Lili’s bedroom back at home. The only thing that’s different is the scenery that’s flickering around outside. 

“Wow…” She takes a few steps inside as Basch bends down to wipe away the chalk on the floor. Walking over towards the window she can see the edges of the forest surrounding the school and the lake in the distance. When she checks her closet her ceremonial robes are just as she left them. 

“We’re going to unpack our rooms, if you’d like to come?” Roderich asks from his place at the door just as Basch gets up and tucks away his handkerchief. 

“Yes!” she chirps, following their lead.

-

The teachers dorms are about as nice as the students, but the room themselves are much larger and the number of them is much smaller. Thankfully most people in the teacher’s dormitory are too busy unpacking and shuffling around their things to talk to them though some people do give a quick hello to the lot of them. 

After the relatively quick process of unpacking, the three of them lounge around the dorm that’s so familiar to her room, complete with their peace lily, Cinderella, and all. Unlike her dorm room her parents get a bathroom, living room area, bedroom, and a study that holds the majority of Roderich’s instruments. The only real difference is that there’s little tree like accessories dispersed throughout their home which is obviously meant for Roderich when he’s in his alternate form. 

She sticks around until it’s late at night and her curfew is coming around before Basch and Roderich escort her back to her dorm for the night, reminding her once, twice, and then a third time that she can always call them via the new telephone in her dorm. It’s a bright pastel blue little thing that looks too cute on her desk and makes her feel more official than she’d like to admit. 

“I promise, if I need anything, I’ll call,” she tells them repeatedly, ironing out their worries until there’s no more wrinkles. They both hug her and leave her to her dorm for the first time after that.

-

It’s six days until the ceremony and nine until the start of the school year, three given to students to spend with their familiars. She thinks that there should be maybe a little more time allotted to bond or understand each other, with how they won’t be able to speak and everything, but Basch says that getting to know your familiar is like getting to know anybody else. For the most part anyways. It’s impossible to cram absolute understanding and a perfect bond into one day. Lili still thinks that they should be given more time regardless.

She’s done with her schoolwork for the summer, so her days are spent mostly trying to get more comfortable around campus. The first two days are dedicated to spending time in her dorm, taking the advantage of being able to lie in her bathtub all day if she wants to and reading until the light grows dim. She eats dinner and breakfast with her parents though in the lunch hall, getting oddly closely acquainted with the other teachers. 

Friday and Thursday she spends in the barren library, only a few students and teachers trickling in and out. She registers for her little library card and sifts through hundreds if not thousands of books and finds a little hidden corner, reading until she has to turn on one of the desk lamps. 

On Saturday she wakes up in the morning, puts on her witch’s hat, looks in the mirror, and then shoves it deep into her closet. She stands there for a long time, pressing her head against the cool wood surface of her wardrobe as she thinks about her past. About Mrs. Johnson, Esther, Georgina, Linnett, and the boy at her last human foster home, with his broken smile and vacant eyes. The fairy comes across her mind too, in all of her radiant and glowing beauty. 

She presses so hard against the wood that it numbs her forehead with the pressure, her heart thrumming in her chest. She can see the stupid plain white calender she bought for the new year like she has eyes in the back of her head, the full moon marked on Monday. 

She doesn’t know how long she stands there for, hands moving up to grab fistfuls of her long, long hair until it hurts. She loosens her braids and pulls, thinking of the yellow walls of the hospital room and about other stupid things, like the way the nurses at the hospital looked at her with pity, like she’s going to die soon. 

The only think that snaps her out of it is the sound of her roommate bustling into her room next door with her bright laughter and chatty excitement. When she looks at the time, she rushes out the door to meet Basch and Roderich for dinner.

-

Surprisingly, she sleeps easily throughout the night and wakes up feeling normal. 

She spends the day reading except for when she meets Basch and Roderich for breakfast and dinner. When they ask if she’s excited for the ceremony she just shrugs and focuses on piling food into her mouth; when they depart after dinner, Roderich reminds her to call them if she needs anything. Smiling, she tells him not to worry. 

He shouldn’t either, because she’s fine, she really is, right up until she gets into the shower. She doesn’t know why the worst things always seem to happen there, because she ends up crying so hard that she’s close to hyperventilating. Her chest is a brown paper bag, squeezing and then puffing back out as fast as a hummingbirds heart. She’s crumpled on the bottom of her tub, the hot water nearly scalding. 

Her hair is everywhere, sticking to her like a second skin or a wet plastic bag. When she sits up it’s long enough that it swivels down into the drain and then there’s an acute feeling that has her getting out of the shower so fast she almost slips again. She quickly pats herself down with a towel before pulling on clothes and dialing a number that’s she’s memorized by heart. 

It rings only once before Basch picks up, his voice like a cool wet balm to the hot tears running down her cheeks. 

“You’ve reached Mr. Zwingli,” he recites, a pen scratching in the background. 

“Dad,” she cries into the phone, wiping at her eyes like she can stop the tears that way. It sounds like Basch has stood up so fast he’s somehow hurt himself, cursing faintly on the phone. In the background, she can hear Roderich say something. 

“Lili? Are you okay? Are you hurt?” His voice urgent and serious, fraying at the edges. 

“No I’m - I’m okay, I just need your help with something. Can you come over?” Her voice is a warbly, unsteady thing. Her throat burns with the words and her face feels like a dripping, leaky faucet. 

“We’ll be there in five minutes, alright?” Basch instructs and she closes her eyes, tears coming with the motion. 

“Alright,” she says, listening to the dial tone after Basch tells her to hold tight. 

True to their word, Basch and Roderich somehow make it over to her dorm in five minutes despite the fact that the teacher’s dorms are nearly a fifteen minute walk. When she opens up the door she’s immediately enveloped in their arms, smothered with their affection in a way that soothes the aching parts of her soul. 

They sit her down on the bed, the two of them looking ruffled and distressed with her crying. Roderich, in his panic, is more bestial than she’s ever seen him, with his eyes gone completely black and little tufts of feathers growing at the sides of his face near his hair. Only when her breathing is calmer and she’s soothed their worst worries does she finally speak.

“I need to cut my hair.” It’s still wet, plastered against her back in a thick and heavy heap. Basch and Roderich both go quiet for a moment, sharing a look between each other that’s so tense it’s almost tangible before the silence is sliced through. She knows that Roderich can do it; he trims his own hair regularly along with Basch’s and her own. 

“Are you sure?” Basch asks her, craning his head down to look at her with sympathetic, sad eyes. It hadn’t occurred to her in her hot flash of panic that it might upset the both of them because parents are weird like that, but she’s sure of it. She needs it to be gone and she needs it to be gone now. 

“Yes,” she sniffles, staring back at him completely serious. When she looks towards Roderich his feathers are gone, but his black eyes still burn into her. 

“How short do you want it cut?” Roderich moves closer to gather her wet hair into his hands. She shivers at the sensation, the wetness being peeling from her like a fruit being skinned. The answer comes into her head the nicety onto the end for good measure, looking up at him with without hesitation.

“As short as Basch’s. Please.” She tries not to sound desperate as she feels, but she thinks she’s failed with how Roderich’s looking at her. He nods at her, raising to his feet and taking her hand, leading her to in front of her mirror before pulling the chair from her desk for her to sit in. She can’t look at herself. 

As Roderich finds the scissors at her desk, Basch grabs one of her heavy towels from the bathroom and bundles it tight around her neck before placing another one across her lap. When Roderich comes back over he gently pulls her hair out from under the towels, holding the long length of it. 

“Lili, are you absolutely sure?” He says, voice mixing with the sound of her scissors sliding open. She looks into the mirror to meet his serious gaze, her tears all dried up.

“Yes.” 

She’s staring at Roderich’s scissors, the blades disappearing behind her head. For a second she thinks he’s going to snip right through his hair, his fingers twitching but to her surprise, he lowers the scissors and squeezes them shut. 

There’s a sharp heavy sound of hair being cut through and she lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Roderich pulls out his comb from his pocket, dividing her hair perfectly down the middle and untangling it. The feeling of the comb’s teeth sliding against her scalp feels so good and clean that she wants to lean into the touch, mind buzzing as she thinks. 

Cutting her hair isn’t going to erase the pills, the broken bones, or any part of her ugly past, but it is going to make her feel different from how she used to be. She’s tired of being afraid and staring at her makeshift sky at night, mind going over every failure she’s ever made and the one’s that she’ll make tomorrow. She tells herself it’ll be like drawing a line in the sand, not to split herself apart, but to bookmark the page where she changes for the better. 

Her eyes fall shut and all she can hear is the snipping of scissors like a waterfall rushing around her from all sides, the cold metal brushing against her neck and her skin. It feels like ripping into wrapping paper, like the tension being released in someone’s shoulders only a million times better. 

When she opens her eyes and she looks at herself, her heart sings. She knows that tomorrow she could still end up without a familiar and she’s still scared, but she’s hoping now too. She smiles for the first time that night when Roderich finally finishes, towels falling to the floor as she lets her hands slide up and into her hair, easier than ever before. 

When she looks at herself in the mirror, she sees a temple standing among ruins.


	13. A Falling Star

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i recommend listening to florence and the machine's cosmic love, as this chapter was greatly inspired by it and so was the entirety of this fic

When her alarm clock rings that morning it pulls her from such a deep sleep that she genuinely forgets what day it is for all of ten seconds, rubbing her face and sitting up in bed with all of the grace of something half dead. She looks at the glowing numbers of her alarm clock for a minute and then feels that familiar dead wash back over her like the aftermath of a hangover. 

She’ll have to thank Basch and Roderich somehow later, but she’s refusing to be sad about anything right now. With determination she whips open the canopy of her bed to let the sunlight wash over her and she starts to get ready for her day. 

After a quick shower and brushing her teeth, she pulls her outfit out of all of it’s glorious plastic wrapping and slides into it. She brushes her now chin length hair with pride before retrieving her witch’s hat and fitting it snugly onto her head. In the mirror she makes the effort to smile once or twice, pulling on the hem of her dress to look at herself from different angles. She even puts on a dab of perfume on her wrists before she leaves, the sweet rose smell tickling her nose. 

When she leaves her bedroom and turns around to lock her door, she doesn’t expect the loud, “Woah!” she gets an earful of, nearly jumping a foot into the air. She already feels like she’s walking out onto a stage even if it’s just leaving her dorm and this does nothing to make her feel more normal.

“Your hair! You cut it!” She turns to see her next door neighbor also in the middle of locking up, her key chain that’s nearly bursting with decorative puff balls and bells in her hand. She’s wearing a bright red dress under her ceremonial robes and her hair is delicately curled underneath her gem encrusted witches hat. Lili’s taken back by how not only pretty she is, but how sturdy and self assured she seems, like a sunflower among dandelions.

“I… I did,” She starts to mumbles the words but then she quickly clears her throat, making an effort to speak clearly. The girl’s eyes seem to green eyes seem to twinkle at her when she does. 

“Spunky! I like it.” The girl gives a thumbs up, before she extends it into a handshake. “My name’s Elizabeta. I guess we’re neighbors.” Lili shakes her hand, smiling at her strong grip. It’s strong enough to shake some of her nerves away already. 

“Thanks, my name’s Lili.” It’s an oddly long handshake, but it’s so fitting for Elizabeta that she off the bat accepts it, despite having known her for less than a minute. 

“Walk with me to the ceremony grounds?” Elizabeta extends her arm for her to hold onto, pushing back her ceremonial robes. It’s not much of a decision for Lili to make, her hand looping through to hold onto Elizabeta as they begin to walk. She’d much rather listen to her friendly neighbor’s chatter than make a solemn walk alone to the ceremony grounds. 

Before they even get two feet though, Elizabeta is abruptly jerking her forwards to scoop up another girl into her arms. It’s their other neighbor, or rather the girl who’s in the room to the right of Elizabeta’s. 

“Mei! Perfect timing,” Elizabeta chirps happily, pulling the tall brown haired girl into their walk like an strong ocean current pulling in another ship. She looks a little surprised when she’s grabbed, but she quickly seems to give into the pull and to fall into step with them. Her ceremonial garb gives a much more delicate feel than their own, bright pink flowers blooming around the base of her hat and pink accents lining her robes. 

“Mei meet Lili, Lili meet Mei,” as Elizabeta speaks the two of them dip forwards to look past her and extend their little hellos, the two of them sharing a similar look that neighboring ships must give each other when sucked into a whirlpool. 

It makes her glad that they’re together when they walk through their dorm halls, seeing girls bursting out of rooms in tears as some of the female teachers try to console them. Every corner they seem to turn there’s girl’s painting on each others lipstick and the sound of a can of hairspray going off. It makes Lili glad that her brain decided to have her midlife crisis yesterday instead of this morning.

Once they stumble out of the dorms they start to engage in actual conversation instead of listening to Elizabeta’s voice ramble on. She learns that Mei moved in four days ago and she seems dead set that she’s going to get some kind of fluffy familiar as is the trend on both sides of her family for some reason. Her mother’s familiar is an alpaca, her father’s an Angora rabbit, her grandmother a Persian cat, and so on and so forth. She seems so excited about it that it almost makes Lili a little bitter, but she’s not going to hold it against her.

Elizabeta seems to be unsure of the type of familiar she’ll bond with but it doesn’t put any damper on her spirits. Lili’s pretty sure that a hurricane could go through and Elizabeta’s spirits wouldn’t be any less dampened, like a lighthouse out on a rolling sea. It’s definitely admirable, leaving Lili wishing that she could leech away even a quarter of the excitement that she seems to have such an excess of. 

When they approach the ceremony grounds, Lili almost gets whiplash from the reminder that this is suppose to be something like a festival. There’s two huge Ferris wheel’s, numerous fair rides that are powdered by magic, a picnic area where families are spread out, and stalls upon stalls of games. Little kids walk around with puffs of cotton candy larger than their heads and she can already feel the jitters rising in the pit of her stomach just hearing a shrill of screams. She had forgotten that this was suppose to be a fun time. 

Elizabeta is begging them to go on roller coasters with her, doing a little jig in her heels from all of the excitement. Neither her or Mei can seem to resist Elizabeta’s unearthly pull, following her onto one ride and then the next. After the first ride Lili decides that the best way to start a new chapter of your life is definitely to go on a magic powered roller coaster. She feels as though all of her anxiety has been pushed out of her by the sheer force of the wind, her legs wobbling and she follows Elizabeta down the steps to the inevitable next ride. 

For awhile she forgets about the ceremony and just has fun. She laughs when Elizabeta tries to pull her hands into the air on roller coasters, tries and fails to beat Mei at mock shooting ranges, and nearly loses her heart and lungs in a little horror house. Witch festivals are decidedly much, much more fun than human ones. Everything is free, clean and polished, and the rides are so next level she thinks human festivals have been completely ruined for her.

The only hitch in their day is easily solved too, with only a flick and wave of a wand. Elizabeta and Mei are confused when she panics after she spills some of her drink onto Mei’s robes, dying the pink accents into a dark muddy color. Mei has to stop her from dabbing napkins onto her and cut her off in the middle of her string of profuse apologies, cleaning it up with a snap of her wand. The liquid bundles up like she’s pulling it out by a needle before she swats it out onto the grass with such ease that Lili feels embarrassed afterwards. Thankfully, Mei and Elizabeta just roll it off as a joke, sparring her the little social humiliation. It turns out her dorm mates make pretty good friends.

When it finally gets dark enough that the festival lights flicker on all together, her heart sinks in her chest a little knowing she has to go and meet Basch and Roderich before lining up for the ceremony. Unfortunately, as teacher and familiar, they had certain obligations to fill around the school and people to discuss things with so they couldn’t take part in the festivities. Though the two of them have promised that later in the school year, during a break, they’d take her to a similar festival which lightens her mood. 

Though anything after the ceremony seems like a whole different universe; like time is separated as B.C. and A.C., before ceremony and after respectively. Her entire life is about to change, hopefully, after tonight and every time she thinks about it her body goes cold and hot at the same time. 

She tries to shake off the thoughts and keep the positive vibe between the three of them going as they reach the real ceremony grounds, the large depression in the earth that she saw weeks beforehand. Before they have the chance to approach the entrance to it, she spots Roderich and Basch walking up to them arm in arm. 

Their faces seem to have a palpable relief when they see her, while her two dorm mates seem to freeze up momentarily as they approach. They know that Basch and Roderich are her fathers because she told them earlier, amused when they confessed to having heard rumours of Basch being one of the stricter teachers on campus. She makes sure not to say anything that could potentially embarrass her dads in the future, but she does say that Basch isn’t scary as he looks. 

“Hey,” Lili chirps at the same time that Mei and Elizabeta give her quick goodbyes and leave to the ceremony gates. If they both want to act squirrely she’s not going to stop them. Besides, she’d rather be alone for this. 

“Lili, you look wonderful.” Roderich looks smitten, adjusting her hat to sit perfectly on top of her head. Basch agrees with him, having a similarly tender expression. It seems like he’s unable to stop taking pictures of all of them, camera flashing more times than she can count. They don’t have witch’s hats on but they are in robes, as all the teachers are. 

“Do you have your athame and wand?” Basch asks and she checks her pockets for them. Just in reach are her wand and the athame, or witch’s dagger, that Basch had given her for the ceremony. Passed down from generation to generation in his family, it’s the same athame that he used in his ceremony ages ago. It’s blade is wrapped in bark covered by a soft moss, a bright green gem at it’s hilt. 

“I do,” she confirms, nodding at the two of them. More and more people are beginning to come to the gates, the three out of the way and pulled to the side. There’s a brief silence where it’s just the hush of people walking and bustling by before Basch takes a deep breath, reaching out to hold onto her shoulder. 

“Lili, we both know that you’re nervous about this. But we want you to know that, whatever happens, we both love you no matter what,” Basch’s voice is quiet with a certain softness that’s heavy with emotion, making even the tips of her ears go pink. 

“And we’re proud of you, Lili, always.” Roderich reaches to squeeze her other shoulder, before she stands on her tiptoes and pulls the two of them in a hug. It rustles her hat around with the force of it and how tight she squeezes them. There’s a strong pull in her heart suddenly to stay with them and to leave everything behind her, but she knows that this is something that she has to do. With a trembling courage, she speaks. 

“I love you too. Thank you both, for everything,” she whispers, eyes squeezing shut tight enough to refuse the tears that want to come. She doesn’t want to let go.

“First years, line up, time to go!” A woman amplifying her voice across the festival shouts and the hoards of people start to bustle a little faster. She squeezes them tight one last time before she springs from their arms, not giving them the chance to say anything else as she disappears into the crowd. If she did give them the chance, she’s afraid the tears would really start to come. 

-

It takes another half hour for the teachers to get every student in line, sitting side by side on the grassy floor of the ceremony grounds. Some people who have lighter robes complain about having to clean the potential grass stains, but Lili’s too nervous to even consider complaining about something. 

Because of her last name which starts with a z and a w, she’s at the very back of the line and considerably high up on the stands. The students she sits next to here gripe about the long wait in order and some students even pull at their athames to show off, like the boy next to her. Some look so long and dangerous she’s surprised that they even fit in some of the students ceremonial robes. 

Students start to get antsy when the stands are nearly filled and the full moon rises higher and higher in the sky, the crystal runes on the ground in the center of the stadium glittering with it’s light. The ceremony really begins when all of the festival lights suddenly flicker out in one gust like someone’s blown out a candle, only the light of the moon and the stars shining overhead them. The entirety of the crowd goes quiet, waiting for something, all their faces tilting towards the sky. 

Then from nowhere, a thousand shooting stars streak across the sky in every direction, exploding like multicolored fireworks in the air and trickling down into the audience. There’s gasps and cheers, people applauding the show and reaching out to touch the fragments of stars that burst like bubbles in their palms. There’s so much color in the sky that when a black figure shoots throughout the air, it’s visible against the night sky. 

A woman’s rich, dark laughter fills the stadium and Lili’s eyes are glued to the figure as she descends towards the ground, the shooting stars becoming faint as she does so. Instead moon colored orbs light the walkways of the stadium, giving just enough visible light for everyone to see the figure clearly. 

It’s a black woman with robes just as dark as the night sky, every inch of her laced with jewels and strings of gold, her very presence filling the stadium with a pleasant magic. She descends from her long bristly broom, the black cat following her obviously her familiar. She strikes Lili as gorgeous immediately, her every movement sending the twinkling of jewelry throughout the air. She’s the kind of woman that walks in magic, the kind she’s only heard in story books.

“Ladies, gentlemen, witches,” she begins happily, voice a rich heavy thing. Her presence is so magnetic people can’t help but stare even in the far back. She’s like star from this far, body glittering under the light of the full moon. 

“Welcome to the school of Ganieda’s school of witchcraft. I, headmistress Arafa, will be leading the familiar rituals on this blessed night. Remember to stay seated until every young witch here has performed and finished their ritual. With that being said, let the full moon ceremony begin!” When she shouts and raises her broom in hand, the crowd rustles with an energy that makes the air pop and fizzle with excitement. The magic here is so thick that it makes her arm hair stand on end. 

There’s a hushed moment after that where some teachers come up to assist the headmistress, handing her a long scroll. At the very beginning of the stands down near where she stands, there’s already a line of students. Lili feels bad for the first kid who has to go up there when the air is so heavy. The headmistress turns to stand on the other side of the runes with the scroll, her booming voice calling the name of the first child. From down below she can see a teacher holding the boy by the shoulders, whispering to him directions and pointing at the runic circle. 

The cheering is always the best for the first few students but for especially the first, the crowd clapping and applauding the young boy who steps up the summoning circle. It happens quick, the words being spoken and the slice of the athame across his palm. The crystal runes glow every possible color, a magic wind sending gusts of air throughout the stadium as an illusion of a prairie comes into view. 

Long blades of grass and flowers sprout in the circle like a faint mist, the crystal runes glowing like neon beneath. There’s silence as the boy holds out his hand, letting the blood freely drip into the grasslands, each drop of blood making the illusion stronger until then there’s a sudden spark of light pushing through the grass. When it comes to the edge of the circle, a little white animal’s head pokes out. The boy drops to his knees and hugs around it’s neck in a touching scene, the illusory field falling away. 

“I think it’s a goat,” the people ahead of Lili whisper, sounding disappointed. She lets her eyes crinkle in annoyance simply because they can’t see her do it. She’d be thankful for any familiar, even if it was a chicken or a cow. The boy moves on, escorted from the premise by as teacher as the next student is called. 

It goes on like that for a long, long time. Eventually the applause dies to a quiet hum for each child, a small portion of people cheering for each particular child. Again and again the circle lights under the light of the full moon, making illusions of different habitats. Some take longer than others or a little more effort to call forth a familiar on a witch’s part. Each are beautiful in their own right regardless of the animal.

One of the rituals resulted in the stadium being filled with bubbles and the sound crashing waves, a blue light glowing from the center as a whale slowly slipped into view with a long piercing wail. It was an event to see it drift over the premise and leave the circle, the little blonde boy who called it jumping up and down with glee. She isn’t sure, but she thinks it’s the same boy who sat in front of her during her testing in November. 

Another interesting summon created an illusion of thousands of densely packed trees that extended up into thin air, little orange specks fluttering all along their sides. Then all at once the little specks lift from the trees, filling the air and coming close enough to the crowd for them to identify them as butterflies. The summon ended with one perched on the little witch’s nose who had performed the ritual. 

There’s mountains, seabeds, deserts, and everything else imaginable. When Lili hears Elizabeta’s name get called she pays close attention to her twinkling hat at the bottom of the stadium, following her from the line all the way to the summoning circle. She doubts that praying for her will have any real effect on the ritual but she does it anyways, hands clasped tight at her chest and relief flooding through her when the entrance of a cave comes into view.   
Everything grows still for a moment until thousands bats fly out of the cave and into the night, one of them rushing out so fast that it smacks Elizabeta right in the face. She feels kinda bad for her when there’s a low rush of laughter following the scene. 

After that it’s a long blur of people for her. Every summoning is important and special of course, but part of Lili is growing too nervous to be able to focus on the admittedly drabber ones. Her eyes trace every witch that goes by though, watching the moment that they slice open their palms and cast their part of the spell. There’s a visible shift that seems to go through each of them in varying degrees, some people lifting into the air, others sinking to their knees as it pulls through them. It’s scary seeing how some witch’s struggle to get up afterwards, nursing their wounds to their chest. 

The scar, though it may grow faint, usually never fades. She remembers when Mrs. Johnson checked her palms for hers and she remembers asking to see Basch’s, an odd thin line right down the middle of his palm. As she wriggles in her uncomfortable chair, her heart won’t settle when they get to the P’s, and then the Q’s, and then X’s. 

It’s a relief when she hears Mei’s name get called, grateful for the distraction of her flowery hat. She watches as she approaches the circle, hands clasped tight near her chest as she prays and hopes that she gets a familiar who really suits her perfectly. The crystal runes light and she slices her palm with a gusto that’s shocking of such a dainty girl. Of course, it’s said that the depth of the cut isn’t important, just the blood, but Lili thinks the severity of the cut surely must mean something. 

A swamp like habitat comes into view, the air filling with the buzzing of flies and the croaks of frogs. The water is high against the gnarled roots of the trees, murky with dirt and the fish swimming by in it. It takes a moment for something to breach the surface of the water, creating rippling waves and take slow, leisurely steps into view. It looks something like a komodo dragon stumbling to greet her, it’s claws dragging against the crystal runes as it scrapes by. To her surprise, Mei falls to her knees and practically engulfs it into a hug, pulling the tongue flickering lizard into her arms. Good for her, Lili thinks. 

Of course, the section for X’s and Y’s isn’t very long, so Lili’s row is called up not too long after Mei. Everyone who was griping before has fallen quiet as they all descend deeper into the stadium. The steps here are so huge that Lili feels like her stomach is dropping out from under her every time she takes another step down. The closer they get to the circle the more the magic in the air is starting to smother her, her hands beginning to shake as the number of people in front of her begin to dwindle down to nothing. 

The girl in front of her with long red hair is beginning to feel more and more like her security blanket though they haven’t exchanged words. As long as she’s in front of her then she’ll be okay, Lili thinks. The line becomes shorter and Lili can’t focus on the rituals anymore. They’re becoming gusts of light in the background, her eyes nailed to the ground where she can see the blades of grass surround her shoes. 

Something is happening to her heart, something wild and furious and she’s isn’t sure that she can hold it in anymore. When the redheaded girl in front of her steps onto the field it reminds Lili of when she finally popped open the jar for the fairy. Is this what she saw, the entire world facing her? 

The crowd is facing her from all directions and the pit is so deep in the ground that when she looks up all she can see is the sky and the moon, so, so large, facing her down. By now it’s nearly over the summoning circle and it feels like a singular eye facing her, perfectly round. The redhead girl slits her hand in front of her and she can’t even hear the crowd, eyes too busy studying the way the grass looks, the way the air smells, how her heart is ripping apart in her chest. The redheaded girl is leaving the circle and she’s shaking.

“Just go straight out the edge of the circle, facing headmistress, Arafa,” the teacher who grips her shoulder tight tells her, bending down to point out the spot. 

“Lili Zwingli!” The headmistress calls to her and something is wrong, something is right. She isn’t imagining the way her heart is shedding it’s own skin, molting as it begins to steady itself, perching, ready to take flight. Every one of her steps across the grass feels like a heartbeat and she can’t breathe and her lungs are too full all at once. She can’t hear anything, looking at the headmistress as she stands in front of her on the other side of the circle, perfectly opposite. 

She can see the headmistress give her a nod when the circle lights, the crystal runes are flickering beneath her feet the same moment that the wind begins to pick up. It whips around her hair, makes her robes billow in every direction. She fumbles for the athame in her pocket, squeezing it so tight in her hand that her knuckles go white and it shakes. 

Holding out her hand over the rim of the circle, a sea of rainbow flickering beneath it, she doesn’t hesitate. 

“Rubrum linea, coniungere nobis!” she cries out at the same time she drags the athame across her palm, deep and hard, only able to focus on how bad she wants this to work, how this has to work. The pain crawls all the way up her arm, like the hurt is attached to each beat of her heart. Trembling, she drops the blade, spreading her hand to the full extent as it freely drops blood into the grass and onto the runes. The winds are getting stronger, blowing her hat from her head, but there’s still nothing yet. The light from the runes is growing brighter beneath her, sprites of light rising in the air. 

A second too long passes and nothing’s happening despite the thrum of her heartbeat. She clenches her fist so tight it hurts, everything hurts. Blood gushes out onto the circle and she’s looking up at the moon, the stars, for anything. 

“Rubrum linea, coniungere nobis!” It’s not a cry, but a scream. Her fist is shaking and the blood is still coming and maybe someone’s saying something to her, but the silence is too loud. 

Then it feels like her lungs are collapsing because something’s pulling on her, the entirety of her, so hard that it physically hurts. The wind is howling in her ears and suddenly she can’t see the moon above anymore, dark storm clouds filling the sky so that it’s pitch black besides the light of the circle. She’s sweating now because the cold of January is suddenly gone, replaced by thick humidity and the smell of rain. She stumbles out into the circle the pull is so strong, her body a heavy live wire. 

When she steps into the circle, she hears the first crack of thunder in the black. It’s all around her, lighting the sky, in time with the beat of her heart and the sound of her own blood rushing in her ears. She doesn’t know how she’s still standing when she feels like she could fold in on herself any moment. It’s a whirlwind here, the crowd lost, the headmistress gone, everyone gone, besides her and it. 

Then there’s something that’s plunging, diving from the sky, and landing right in front of her with a clap of thunder. 

All she can see are it’s eyes. 

They’re suddenly so close that they’re all that she can see, bright red and glowing and swallowing her alive but how could she be afraid, 

and then, 

there’s so much color. 

She sees sunsets, sunrises, waterfalls, the beginning of spring, the turning of each season. An arctic fox hiding in the snow, the cry of a baby bird. She feels insatiable hunger, loneliness, the warmth of a sibling, and she can feel her wings touching the blue of the sky and dipping into clouds, the trill of a voice that isn’t her own sending vibrations through her. It rips through her like it’s electric, pain and pleasure, and nothing is simple or clean cut, everything melding into this moment. There is no easy way to describe the separation and the melding at once. It’s ugly, it’s beautiful, it’s a gift, it’s him. 

She can feel feel herself meld against him perfectly, something tying their hearts together through the feelings. His heart beats in the palms of her hands and syncs with her own, an emptiness and the feeling of being full mixing. For a moment it’s just warmth, the wetness and heat of birthing something, but there’s a cold death swirling and caressing. It’s the stars, the moon, the sun all coming together to give them this. 

The love between them pours, infinite in this moment and coloring everything. Their hearts are a single steady, beat, beat, beat. 

Everything goes black.


	14. And It All Made Sense

In the beginning it’s easier because father is there. 

His memories of him are faint as smoke against the light of day. What he remembers most is how father knows the answer to everything. The reason why the sky’s blue, why the ocean is so deep, why they have wings and fish have fins. Gilbert remembers this best, along with his wide, powerful wings that he was so envious of as a child. As far as he knows he doesn’t have a mother and there never was, because father never spoke of her.

With father around he didn’t have to care as much or be so alert all the time. He could do things without thinking about the repercussions and even if he fell, father would catch him before he hit the ground. His only responsibility was to play nice with Ludwig, which he did. Most of the time. 

It’s like the universe gave them just enough time together for his father to teach him how to survive before he left. He learns to fly, kill, provide, and to survive; but most importantly his father teaches him about the red string. Animals like them, or familiars he should say, can forge special bonds with the magical humans, if they so please. The opportunity only comes once and if you choose it, you grab onto the string. 

Gilbert doesn’t understand why his father refused his own pull, nor does he understand why would any familiar would reject it in the first place. Who would reject a match made by the universe? His father, a scarred and heavy set bird, seems to gaze into his past when he asks him this. 

Apparently, there are just some who don’t feel the pull or neglect to ignore it. His father tells him that humanity can be confusing and messy and leaves it at that. 

After father disappears one day, Gilbert takes his place as protector. Ludwig needs to be taken care of, unaware of his own small stature in comparison to some of the bigger animals. More than once Gilbert has to save him from falling and beat up his opponents for him, but he doesn’t mind even if he gripes about it afterwards. Fighting and protecting are the things he’s good at after all. 

For a long time it’s just him and Ludwig, going where they like. They cross oceans together, swing around mountains, and sail through deserts. No distance is too great for them, no opponent too much. In the meantime he teaches Ludwig everything father taught him, both of them sharpening and honing their instincts through mock fights and games. Gilbert likes to think that he’s a pretty good teacher when he sees Ludwig’s raw skill and power shine like it’s been polished during fights.

It’s all in preparation for when he eventually has to leave for his red string. Of course they have no real way to identify the passage of time with how often they travel, but there’s a certain warmth in his chest just like father described there would be. 

On one night at the tail end of winter, he says goodbye to Ludwig and sits under the full moon with his heart so heavy and full that he feels pulled by it when he flies. He keeps his eyes sharp despite how sleep pulls at him, the thought of missing his one shot because of laziness unacceptable. He shifts around all night on that branch he’s so excited. Even when the moon hangs low in the sky he stays faithful and hopeful, not doubting his witch for a second. After all, father said that his red string would come on a night of the full moon when his heart feels just as full and father knows everything.

The red sun comes up and his red string is nowhere to be found. 

He tries to rationalize why his red string didn’t come when father said it would, spending his time looking at his reflection in icy waters. He stares into his freakish red eyes and glances over his white plumage that has brought so many battles to his door and decides that he must be defected, suddenly. 

It’s the only explanation that he can think of. He’s the only one of his kind, unlike any other. Not like father, not like Ludwig, and unlike every bird he’s ever known. He’s bigger, white as the moon, can swallow bones whole, has wings that are so large they make their own winds. The universe hasn’t given him his red string because it doesn’t exist. 

His witch, he had imagined, would surely be able to understand what it’s like having a red target strapped to your back. They’d team up with him against this hard, unforgiving world and they’d be unstoppable together. He wouldn’t need to explain himself because they’d just understand. 

But after that night, he scrapes the idea out of his mind. He’s alone in this world despite his heart’s heavy fullness. If the universe wants him to be an apex predator, a monster, then he’ll be the best there ever was. There’s no one stronger, no one that he’d ever surrender to. 

That morning when he returns, he pins Ludwig to the ground and screeches when he asks why he’s back again. He gives Gilbert a nasty cut, sure, but he never asks about the red string again. 

-

Full moons flicker by like forest fires, dying and then breathing into life in seconds. For awhile Gilbert still begrudgingly sits out for everyone, his heart still so heavy and stubbornly full. He only becomes increasingly bitter when his red string doesn’t show. After awhile, he stops waiting around and looking for it draped across trees and hiding in between stones. Full moons just become nights that are a little brighter. 

When Ludwig sits out for his first full moon, Gilbert goes with him if only to keep him protected. 

“It might be a family curse. It might not come,” he jeers at Ludwig, who bristles and focuses on his search. He still believes and Gilbert can’t find the strength to smother his enthusiasm. His brother is normal after all, with his brown plumage and gold eyes. There’s no doubt in Gilbert’s mind that he’ll find his red string. 

This time he gets to see his loved one disappear in slow motion instead of vanishing from his life. He spies Ludwig tense on a branch and raising his wings in preparation and intent as he goes in for the dive with his talons first, cushioning the blow just like Gilbert taught him. One second he’s there, the next he’s hidden from Gilbert’s vision by a thick tree. When Gilbert rounds it and calls for him he can’t find him anywhere. 

He’s not prepared for how much it hurts to lose him. That night he’s vulnerable, crying out for Ludwig until it doesn’t sound right anymore, until his wings feel like they’re made of lead and he slams into the snow in exhaustion. He decides that night that fate is the only one who’s ever bested him in a fight. 

After that, he spends so much time flying in storm clouds that he familiarizes himself with thunder’s laughter and lightning’s smile, convincing himself that they’re all that he’ll ever need. He gets into fights just to feel the ache, storms over tiny human towns just to remember that he’s alive. 

Though there are rare moments when his heart insists that they’re out there, beating against his ribcage like it’s trying to lead him to them. It feels so real sometimes that he almost believes it too, even after the countless hours of waiting and staring at moon. During his lowest moments, he looks up at her in all of her glowing beauty, and begs. He’s a hulking beast crying beneath a moon that’s so similar to himself, each of them the only of their kind in all of the world. He wants so bad that it hurts more than being a beast, more than the bitterness or the loneliness. 

-

Moon after moon passes. It’s spring when he looks up one day, blood splattered on his feathers from a fresh kill. He doesn’t think about Ludwig or father.

-

The next time he looks up it’s autumn, a leaf falling on his beak and tickling his nose. He tests the wound he’s nursing stretching out until it spasms and wonders if it will be healed by morning. He doesn’t think about the red string.

He hates seeing the moon so much now that he uses the clouds to block it out often as possible. It still lights up the night and peaks at him in between gaps in the clouds, its presence inescapable some nights. On nights of the new moon, he can almost forget that he has a heart.

-

When it happens, he doesn’t even realize that it’s the night of a full moon, despite it being cloudless as he travels across a quiet ocean. 

He’s lost in his own thoughts, just letting the wind carry him when suddenly his heart sheds its own skin, convulsing in a way that makes him crushes the air from his lungs. He wonders if he’s dying at first, beating his wings faster as if he could escape the wildfire burning in his own chest. He had thought it had gone dormant but it’s beat is back, tormenting him and traitor to his own body once again. 

It’s then that he spots it against the horizon, almost mistaking it for the sun. It’s a bright crease with no end, glowing bright and strong as a flame and calling him so strongly that it’s blinding in every sense of the word. His heart rattles like it’s grown a will of it’s own and his blood pounds so hard that it’s violent, smashing up against his bones like it’s rioting to get out and spill.

He’s imagined this for years upon years, promised himself that he’d reject it even if it came just to spite the universe and he hates it. He hates it because it’s beautiful, hates it because of how badly he’s longed for it, hate that he’s so weak for this and this only. The second time that it calls it’s even stronger and it’s the sweetest melody that he’s ever heard, a heart beating like it’s crying out to him. Like it’s struggled to meet him here, like it wants him too.

What he hates most is that there is no hesitation for him. He knows when he spots it that he’s going to dive for it with everything that he has, knowing full well that he’s lied to himself. Even after all this time, he still believes and he’s wondered and he’s hoped, despite everything that ever made him want to quit. 

He grabs the red string.

-

He’s furious, raining down thunder and lightning and hurling towards the ground to face the witch that’s left him waiting for so long. He’s got a deep terrible screech prepared in the back of throat and his talons are itching to dig into something, but then he makes the most stupid mistake 

of looking into her eyes.


	15. Not What You Expected

When Lili wakes up, her eyelids are so heavy they feel as though they’ve been glued shut, slowly pulling apart when she opens her eyes. She’s so tired and comfortable where she lays she can’t even summon the strength to act shocked when she sees a mass of feathers bundled directly across from her on the other side of the hall. 

It’s pushed the hospital beds aside and made room for itself, white feathers illuminated by the morning sun. Like a egg pushed inside out, the yellow walls of the room only further accentuate the pristine color of the bird. She watches it for a few moments wordlessly, studying how the feathers shift with each of its slow breaths. 

She wonders if it’s a part of her now, thinking of the red vibrant eyes that she lost herself in last night. Just thinking about that time makes her feel like she’s sinking into the mattress of her hospital bed, so she just settles on the simple victory of knowing she has a familiar. A huge, storm generating, hell raising familiar. She smiles when she thinks about the boy with his cross from her past now; she’s sure he’d wet himself in front of Gilbert.

That makes her pause for a moment, quietly testing the name on her tongue a few times. The Beilschmidt comes after a few times, like she’s trying to jog her memories. As she’s doing this, the slight movement of her jaw makes her realize that something is nestled perfectly right in the crook of her collarbone.

When she brings up her hand to gently feel what’s there, she gets a chirp in response and then a flurry of wings, a little brown bird landing on her chest. It’s a surprise to see Roderich in his familiar form with how he usually avoids it, preferring his much more capable and large human form over it. She knows how bad she must have stressed him out for him to be like this, so she offers him a smile. 

This makes Roderich happy, if she can read bird emotions well, or at all. He hops up and down the length of her chest, chirping and singing a melody before coming back up to nuzzle under her chin. The ticklish sensation makes her giggle, just as she notices Basch rustling awake on a hospital bed not too far from her. 

“Lili!” he’s immediately stumbling out of bed to her side when he realizes she’s awake, nearly falling on his way over in his own haste. He looks like he hasn’t changed from last night, tie askew and loosened and his robes nowhere to be seen. When he’s close enough to he reaches out to brush a few stray hairs from her cheek, his face one big wrinkle of worry.

“How do you feel?” he asks, probably deciphering Roderich’s constant chattering. He can’t seem to quiet down, swinging his little heart out as he bounces up and down and snuggles against her. 

“Tired,” she has to clear her throat to say it, but even then it’s still scratchy and dry. When Basch offers her a glass of water, she sits up to drink it and takes long, slow swallows of it. Water has never tasted so good before. 

“What happened?” she rasps after she’s had her fill, eyes glancing over to where her familiar sits. He’s gone still now, no longer heaving with heavy sleepy breaths but he’s still in the same position. 

“You fainted.” Basch looks away from her for a moment, eyes dropping to the floor as he shifts his jaw. When he looks back up, the smile he gives her is tight around the edges. “For most of your ritual it was too hard to see.” She gets the distinct feeling that he’s not telling her everything, but she decides that it’s nothing that can’t wait. Roderich has gone quiet now, nestled on the plush hospital blankets on top of her and tilting his head to the side while looking at her. 

“Do I have to stay here?” She lifts her bandaged hand and turns it palm up, half expecting to see a splotch of red there. Instead she only sees clinical white as she flexes her hand, not feeling a cinch of pain. 

“For now, yes. You’re allowed to leave only after headmistress Arafa has spoken with you,” It rolls off Basch’s tongue smooth, but it sends jolts up her spine that makes her sit upright so fast she gets dizzy. Roderich scolds her for it with loud chirps, fluttering his wings in an abrasive fashion until she settles back down. 

“The headmistress? Why?” She’s racking her mind for what she’s done wrong to warrant all of this trouble, mind flickering to the worst conclusions the fastest. Expulsion is high on the list. She doesn’t want to consider what magical detention will be like. 

Basch doesn’t answer her though, looking at her in a knowing way for a second before it clicks in her head. A soft “oh” comes from her as she looks past him to where Gilbert still lays, not having moved even an inch. She feels guilty for acting like he’s not even there, but it’s not like he’s rushing up to talk to them either. Her eyes flicker back down to her hand, tracing the crisp lines of her bandages with a finger. 

“We’ll stay with you until she comes,” Basch says this quietly, his eyes having that hard protective edge that she’s so familiar with. In any other scenario she feels like she’d be comforted by him saying this, but instead she just feels a deep flush of embarrassment roll over her. She can’t look at him, pulling her wounded hand closer to her chest and pressing her thumb where the wound should be. It still doesn’t hurt at all.

“You don’t have to do that, I know you have a lot of work to do.” She’s playing with the edges of a bandage, flipping it up and down. Basch shifts at the edge of the bed. 

“Work isn’t important right now,” Basch replies in a way that she’s sure is meant to be comforting. Roderich is hopping into her view, balancing on the tips of her fingers to sing to her questions she can’t understand. 

“I know, but I’ll be fine here. I mean, there’s a nurse.” She doesn’t bother to mention that she’s the only patient in the room, which means she gets the nurse’s undivided attention. It’s so quiet here that she bets it’s hard for the nurse not to eavesdrop onto their conversation. Or maybe she is, even though she looks busy at her desk at the far end of the room. 

“I don’t-” Basch starts to say, voice hardening at the edges. Before he can go on though, Roderich is springing from Lili’s fingers to perch on his shoulder, singing high and melodious. Lili’s stomach twists uncomfortably at the thought of upsetting her father, curling into herself a little more when Basch grips his knees tight. 

“Okay.” Basch relents after Roderich’s done singing, even though he sounds displeased. Her eyes lift up to meet his right before he leans in to give her a quick hug. “If you want to call us in the meantime, the nurse has a phone.” 

“Thank you,” she whispers back, a guilt warping her smile. Basch tries his best to return it, but he just looks frustrated. Roderich tweets what she thinks is a goodbye, turning around on Basch’s shoulder to watch her as they leave. With a quick exchange with the nurse at the end of the hall, they pass through the swinging hospital doors, the sound of Roderich’s singing ringing down the hallway until it vanishes completely. 

Gilbert doesn’t look like he’s even so much as twitched a muscle since she woke up, still curled in on himself and hiding underneath all of his feathers like a curtain. He makes the clinic feel like a doll’s house, each of the little plastic white beds perfectly aligned until someone shoved him inside. It’s obvious he isn’t meant to be here and he doesn’t want to be. 

He’s bigger than any bird she’s ever seen in her life, which admittedly isn’t too many. Her experience is limited to vultures and hawks that she’s just happened to see up close and a few bald eagle’s when her family visited the zoo awhile ago. Seeing a bald eagle up close made her feel small, but seeing Gilbert makes her feel downright petite and right now he’s curled up. She can’t even imagine how long his wingspan must be, or how he can fly with all of his weight. She’s sure that there’s an in depth magical answer to that though.

The clock on the wall ticks slow, like it’s procrastinating in order to give her all the time she need’s in order to summon the courage to speak. She’s mentally thumbing through the various textbooks she’s dug into and magazine articles that she’s read about breaking the ice with your familiar but all of her preparation for this seems useless. It feels unnatural to ask his favorite color or to crack a joke like she would in Elementary school. 

When she closes her eyes and tries to focus on their bond, the only thing that clues her in that it’s even there is the steady heartbeat between them. She feels like she’s a little girl again, struggling to reach out for something that’s always out of reach and hiding away in the recesses of her chest. 

She decides to try anyways though. 

“Hello?” she calls out, watching the way the feathers seem to freeze like a marble statue. She slides her bandaged hand underneath her robes, pressing her fingers hard against her heart to feel its pulse, like it’ll bring her closer to him again. 

“My name’s Lili Zwingli, though you must know that already…” she trails off, craning her head to the side to see if she get a peak past those huge wings. Gilbert remains unresponsive, like if he keeps still enough she’ll eventually lose interest in him. She thinks of sliding out of bed and walking over to him, but something in her bones tells her that it wouldn’t be wise. 

When she looks over to the nurse and catches her staring point blank she almost wants to laugh despite how it hurts. The nurse’s shoulders hitch up tight and she starts straightening her papers immediately, opening up folders and tucking certain things away. Every time Lili looks at her after that, her eyes are pointedly looking down at her desk. 

With nothing left to do, she snuggles back into the hospitals sheets and turns on her side, pulling the covers up to her chin. Sleep is elusive like everything else she wants today, her mind easing in and out of memories of the night before. Every so often she’ll sit up to see that Gilbert still hasn’t moved an inch.

-

Headmistress Arafa carries such a charged air with her that Lili knows she’s nearby even before she enters through the clinic’s swinging doors. It’s like a buzz goes through the clinic, the nurse at the desk fixing her hair in a compact mirror and Gilbert rustling with more activity than she’s seen from him all morning. She too tries to make herself presentable, straightening her bed sheets and quickly pulling her fingers through her short hair. 

Lili finishes up just as the door to the clinic opens, the sound of jingling following it. Into view comes the headmistress, her ceremonial robes from yesterday replaced with dark blue ones. The amount of jewels she wears doesn’t change though, several rings on each hand and elaborate crystal earrings swaying with her every step. By her feet her familiar slinks in without a sound, the slim black cat sweeping it’s eyes around the room lazily before it zones in on her. 

While the headmistress has a few hushed words with the nurse, her familiar though completely ignores the chit chat and elects to pad right over to Lili. It walks with the kind of haste that can only mean that it wants something, or at least that’s what Lili recognizes. Her instincts tell her to try and pet it but she steels and reminds herself that the little cat before her has a level of thought processing similar to her own. 

The cat jumps up near the end of the bed and sits, tail curling around it’s legs elegantly and proceeds to stare at her with wide, golden eyes. It’s not intimidating as much as it makes her feel flustered, Lili’s mouth going dry as she wonders what to do.

“Hello,” she tries, eyes shifting down to look at the little cat’s paws. When she looks back up into it’s eyes, it blinks owlishly at her. Lili presses her fingers together, fidgeting a bit. 

“I’m Lili Zwingli. It’s very nice to meet you,” she introduces herself quietly, feeling a little dumb. She can’t shake the feeling that she’s just talking to any old cat but at the same time she knows that no cat would have this much interest in her. One of it’s ears twitches as the headmistress begins to walk again, a jingling chorus of bells. 

“Miss Zwingli, how are you fairing?” Just Arafa saying her name gives Lili a lick of adrenaline up her spine, her head snapping up to see her wide brilliant smile. Even Gilbert seems to twitch, the gentle rustling of feathers coming from the other side of the hall. 

“I’m - I’m very good thank you,” she stutters as the headmistress comes close, the smell of rain and jasmine following her. 

“Bast can be such a tease, you’ll have to forgive me,” the headmistress scoops up the cat, Bast apparently, into her arms before sitting down on the bed that Basch had pulled close before. Bast seems to have no qualms with being picked up, curling into the headmistress’s arms contentedly. 

“It’s okay, I didn’t mind,” Lili spouts, somehow embarrassed even though she’s not the one apologizing. Talking to teachers always feels like a stressful event for her, probably because she associates them with bullies and her own tears.

“I’m relieved then,” Arafa’s voice sounds pleasantly surprised, but Lili still can only manage to maintain eye contact for a few seconds before her eyes snap away. Bast is much easier to focus on and she takes to studying the delicate pink on her ears, the cat gazing lazily at her. 

“Now, before I start I’d like for the both of you to be present.” This makes Lili’s eyes snap up, darting between Gilbert and Arafa. She doesn’t seem nervous at all, lips still pulled into an easy smile and her posture leisurely as she strokes Bast. 

“Mr. Beilschmidt, would you please come join us?” Arafa’s voice, despite it’s almost motherly lull, is by no means passive. She looks up from Bast to the mass of feathers on the other side of the room, staring inquisitively at him. When he doesn’t move after a few seconds, Lili feels embarrassed on his behalf. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t think he’s-” she begins to say, but the headmistress cuts her off by raising a single hand. Immediately she falls silent, studying her sharp profile as the tension begins to grow thicker in the air.

“Mr. Beilschmidt, please don’t make me repeat myself.” Arafa’s eyes narrow and her smile lessens at the same time that the air suddenly snaps cold, like the ice they were treading on has groaned beneath their collective weight. Lili can’t speak, feeling as though if she moved it would make the pressure worse and she’d fall under. Across the way she can see Gilbert twitch, curling even further in on himself if it were possible. 

Ultimately what gets Gilbert to move isn’t Arafa, but Bast, who simply turns her attention from Lili and slowly narrows in on Gilbert for the first time since entering the room. Her tail flicks, smacking against the hospital bed, and suddenly the feathers are twisting and uncurling until Lili can finally make sense of where he ends and begins. 

Upon seeing her familiar for the first time, Lili’s first thought is that he’s massive. What’s baffling is that he’s not even stretched to his full height; instead he’s hunched and stalking forwards with a posture that says he could bolt or lunge at any second. His wings drag on the floor and his black talons clack with his every step, long powerful legs coiled underneath him like springs. His stride alone echoes his power and physical finesse, but what captures Lili’s attention is his low ducking head. 

His eyes are that perfect, striking red that she got lost in the night before. They almost seem to glow they’re so vibrant, the color bouncing off the white of his feathers and only furthering their intensity. Noticeably though, Gilbert refuses to look at her, instead his eyes staying trained to Arafa and Bast. 

As soon as he moves the tension in the room nearly dissolves, Bast growing disinterest in him and turning towards Lili. Arafa is all sweet smiles again, her eyes softening as Gilbert sits himself at the ends of the beds, too large to squeeze down the aisle. 

“Thank you.” Arafa nods at him, back to stroking Bast who seems not to care. Gilbert doesn’t react besides blinking, a thin membrane quickly darting out across his red eyes. 

“Now, first and foremost, I’d like to start by congratulating the both of you on completing the ritual and on your acceptance into the school. I understand that this was no easy feat for either of you.” she says it so sincerely that Lili really thinks she means it, her eyes down turned with sympathy. 

Lili thanks her and Gilbert remains tense. 

“Secondly, Miss Zwingli, it’s crucial that you understand what Mr. Beilschmidt is.” Arafa turns towards her fully, tucking her hair behind one ear. “A name that you may recognize him by is thunder bird. Like the title suggests, Mr. Beilschmidt is uniquely powerful in that he can manipulate thunder and lightning. This means three things.” She holds up three fingers, each decorated with golden bands.

“One, you’re a fire affinity witch, but more specifically lightning or electric.” One of her fingers go down. 

“Two, this great power will be difficult to harness and even more so because of the late timing of the ritual. Because of this, I’m going to make it mandatory that you join Miss Arlovskaya’s Sewing Club. It meets at three on Tuesdays and Thursdays.” Another finger goes down as Lili makes a mental note, suddenly thankful that she’s handy with a sewing machine. 

“Three, the two of you have been given a very special gift. Cherish it,” Arafa leans in to tell them this, her jewelry swaying and catching the light as she whispers it. Her eyes even seem to twinkle with latent magic. The last finger goes down and she pulls back, clapping her hands together.

“Any questions?” She asks, perfectly chipper as she looks between them. Lili shakes her head and Gilbert remains just as rigid as when the conversation started. 

“No? Excellent, then you’re both free to go back to your dorm.” Arafa gently scoots Bast out of her lap and stands. She doesn’t have to say a word for Gilbert to move out of her way, his body jerking backwards unnaturally. She leaves the two of them hanging there like an unhinged door, like she was the hurricane that came through and ruptured the perfectly still air between them. 

Bast, all pointed ears and ramrod straight tail, turns to give her a final look as they leave. Of course she doesn’t know what it means (she can’t speak cat) but she can’t help but feel that she’s laughing at her somehow.


	16. Chapter 16

Walking through the halls with Gilbert is in itself an experience. 

Usually when she walks alone, she has to dart around and slip past people in order to not get trampled due to her small stature, but with Gilbert around it feels like she’s walking a hulking pit bull without a leash. She goes from walking in squiggles to a straight line, a direct path being carved ahead of her like a drill as people rush out of her way to avoid her. Never before has she commanded such a presence walking somewhere and she almost enjoys it, if not for how people so blatantly stare and whispering as she goes by. It also makes her feel incredibly aware that she’s still in her ceremonial attire from yesterday, witch’s hat tucked away under her arm, while most people are in casual clothes. At least she gets back to the dorms in record timing. 

Once they enter the dorms it’s impossible not to notice how the cookie cutter layout of the place has changed overnight, many student’s doors warped and stretched to accommodate their familiars. Some are so distinct in shape that she doubts that there’s even a need for the number labels for the dorms when some familiars simply wouldn’t be able to cram themselves into some of the other doors. 

So, when she walks up to her own door that’s been rolled out like dough she’s not that blown away, but she is eager to see her room. Or, maybe she should say their room now. Albeit awkwardly she unlocks her door and pulls it back wide enough for Gilbert to creep inside. 

She had been expecting it to grow so spacious, but she wasn’t expecting how her walls have grown so high that they’ve made a miniature tower above her. Looking above she can see how the wallpaper fades to solid stone until it reaches a colored glass ceiling that she can only see bits of, large heavy branches darting out in between made with Gilbert in mind. There’s even a nest at the top for his comfort, surrounded by plush greenery that grows more thickly towards the ceiling.

Gilbert takes immediate advantage of this, using his powerful legs and wings to hurl himself up and to grab onto the nearest branch. A paper or two flies off her desk as he moves, her bed canopy fluttering and her new curtains doing the same. She watches as he hauls himself up to the highest peak, curling in the nest at top and not giving her a second glance. She watches as he adjusts and gets comfortable before falling stationary, his white blanket of feathers colored by the stain glass above.

Sighing, she closes the door behind herself and looks around her room, studying all of the new little details. Near her desk there’s now a large perch made of sturdy wood like something she could find in a pet store if only a thousand times bigger. There are two more stands in the room just like it, one near her door and another placed between her mirror and her bedside. 

What really pulls her attention though is the sound of rushing water from the bathroom, her mind flicking back to Roderich’s description of a hot spring. As she goes to investigate she quickly notices that her bathroom door has been replaced with a wide archway covered by a thick beaded curtain; definitely not what she’s used to or comfortable with, but she doubts that Gilbert will be peaking his head in at her anytime soon. She doesn’t know if a bird would be interested in her very human anatomy, but she pushes the thought out of her mind as she slips past the curtain.

On one side of the room it’s her untouched bathroom with the same shampoo bottles and hand soap as she left on Monday morning, but there’s a noticeable divide down the center of the room. The tile fades into lush green grass and the walls grow dense with leafy greenery much like near the ceiling, a warm mist hanging through the air. 

When she sees the large rocks jutting from the ground to surround gently steaming water, she gets a little heady rush of excitement. On Gilbert’s side of the bathroom there’s a huge hot spring that looks decently deep, water trickling down from a pile of rocks in a little waterfall that makes a thin spray. Tiptoeing over into the grass she reaches over the line of rocks to dip in her fingers, a pleasant shiver rolling through her at the perfect temperature. 

But, despite all of the grandness in having a hot spring in your bathroom, Lili can’t find herself to use it. She doesn’t want to ruin a good thing with her soiled mood, still tired and struggling to cope with the entirety of everything that’s happened in the last two days. It’s Gilbert’s side of the room anyways. 

Instead, later at night, she soaks in her own bathtub until her body feels like one big prune and stirs her thoughts around her brain until they become a mixture. Out of all the witch’s there are, she had to be the one to be connected to Gilbert, a thunderbird.

She doesn’t know what about her made the universe certain that she could handle such raw power, especially with her upbringing. She feels like she has a one sided love with this magical world that seems to reject her when she used to find so much solace in it, giving her an ugly wand, blowing it up in her face, and an unruly familiar to match. She really would have just been happy with a goat, she thinks, dipping her head under the water and blowing bubbles until she’s breathless.

Their differences don’t slip past her either; she knows that they’re complete opposites. When they stand next to each other they look like cut outs from different magazines pasted onto the same paper, him all sharp edges and her tiny and soft. 

She knows that there must be soft parts of Gilbert too, her mind buzzing as she thinks back to their ritual. The flashes of memories that she gets are mostly incomprehensible, more feeling than image. It’s hard to make sense of them, but she knows that Gilbert must be hurt like how people warned her he would be. 

She doesn’t know what to say to him to make it better, or how to even ask for his forgiveness. She doesn’t want to explain her past and she doubts that he wants to listen to her talk about it. Maybe it would just be better to not say anything at all, but Lili doesn’t think she can go to sleep without addressing him, for her own sake. It’s not like she doesn’t feel guilt or hates the way that he dismisses her. She doesn’t want to make him unhappy.

Slipping out of the bathtub and dressing, she dries her short hair and reminds herself why she cut it in the first place, picking what little courage that her chest blooms. She resists the urge to tiptoe like a little kid, standing right beneath the circle of light that casts down from the ceiling. Standing in the ring of color, she looks up. The only thing that’s changed in hours is the light that strikes his feathers is now lit by the moon, softer and coloring him in pastels. She admires it for a moment, before she speaks.

“Gilbert, are you awake?” she starts, calling out to him. He ignores her. Somehow, it gives her the confidence to keep going. 

“Listen I… I’m sorry for not being there sooner. I know that it must have been hard and-” before she can continue, her words are stolen by her gasp when Gilbert suddenly launches himself out of his nest in a jerky movement. He dives towards the ground in a flash, his wings spreading out to soften his landing and his claws spread to grab her or land, she doesn’t know which. 

She stumbles backwards as he lands right in front of her with a heavy thump, his head hanging low and his wings raised by his sides like he’s ready to lunge. She doesn’t know how she holds her ground when he inches closer, his body illuminated in the moonlight and his violently red eyes almost glowing in the dark. Her hands pressed automatically over her chest as if to keep in her rabbit heart. 

Gilbert looks at her as if he can’t stand her, like even looking at her is inconvenient as stepping in shit. He’s never seemed as cold as he does in this moment, more predator than anything else and she’s scared of him for the first time. She doesn’t know what to do, her feet glued underneath her and her lungs stopping like there’s a jam in the cogs. He could rip her apart if he wanted. 

“You’re scaring me,” she whispers, her voice trembling as she looks up into his eyes. When he rears his head back sharply, wings raising, she stumbles backwards again. She nearly falls but catches herself on one of her bedposts, leaning against it heavily as Gilbert extends his neck and opens his mouth impossibly wide to screech at her so loud that her ears ring.

She’s plastered against the bed post, stunned and holding onto it like it’s her life line as she pants, unsure of what he’s going to do next. He’s in the way of door and intentionally or not, he’s trapping her in. The only thing she can do is hold her ground, tears that she didn’t realize were building beginning to slip down her cheeks. 

Only then does he turn away, head snapping towards the wall opposite of them as he straightens up, as if uncomfortable or disgusted with her. She’s not sure which and she doesn’t care to stay around to find out, pumping with adrenaline as she scrambles to the door. She unlocks it with trembling hands and slams it behind her when she slips out, holding the handle with a white knuckled grip. 

From behind it she can hear another deafening screech, along with the sound of something clattering to the floor. Her heart clenches and unclenches so fast it’s like a spasm instead of a beat.

“Lili?” a soft voice asks from her left and she jerks nearly a foot into the air, letting go of the handle. When she looks up it’s Mei, her head craned to the side as she tries to get a better look at her. The moment is too much for her to handle and she doesn’t know how to explain herself, embarrassed and hurt and feeling too many things. She raises her hands to her eyes and sinks to the ground, knees up against her chest. 

“He hates me,” she cries, past the point of caring about making a scene. Gilbert hates her and she’s ruined everything, she’s a terrible witch, a terrible daughter, and a terrible person. He hates her so much he’d run her out of her own room, would rather stare at a wall for hours than look at her and it makes her want to peel off her own skin. The Big Black Cat storybook didn’t say the spiffs would be this bad, would make her breakdown in front of people she barely knows. 

“Lili…” Mei whispers, folding her night dress beneath her to crouch down next to her, but not too close. Lili’s sobbing, choppy breaths wracking her body and hiccups squeezing out of her so hard that her chest physically aches. She doesn’t know if she can do this, if she can ever look Gilbert in the face again. The thought that they’re permanently attached crosses her mind and she feels a wave of nausea roll over her. 

“He hates me,” she repeats, throat tight and red hot like the words are coal and hot embers. When Mei touches her shoulder, it feels a million miles away, like another universe. She’s not here right now. 

“Come with me to my room?” Mei asks, her other hand extended out in front of Lili. She wipes her hands on herself before she takes it, Mei helping her to her knees and leading her to her room. 

Lili’s in too much of a blur to look around, only registering that she’s being sat on a bed and that Mei’s hand is firm, stroking up and down her back. It’s so much warmer in here than her room, the sound of frogs and bugs lulling her to eventually quiet snuffles. 

“He doesn’t hate you,” Mei murmurs and Lili shakes her head, biting into her cheek hard. 

“He does though, you don’t understand,” she chokes out, her body on fire with grief, “I’m fifteen.” 

It feels good to say, to spit it out like it’s blood and venom in the back of her throat. At that, Mei goes quiet, her hand stopping it’s soft circles on her back. She can’t look at her though, too scared that her expression will stick to the corners of her mind when she’s at her lowest. She can’t bear everyone to look at her like that. She’s spent too much time with people seeing her that way. 

She doesn’t expect it when Mei wraps her arms around her and hugs her tight, the smell of bubblegum sweetness filling her senses. 

“You can stay the night.” She reaches up, turning to return Mei’s hug. It’s a weird sensation to hug someone that you barely know and to confess to them so much and in so little time, but she’s overwhelmingly grateful. She doesn’t know how she can ever begin to repay her for this; she owes so many people for her well being and as grateful as she is, she hates being a burden. 

After the brunt of the tears, she apologizes so many times to Mei that night that she’s scolded for it. Mei rolls out an extra cot for her and they stay up talking late into the night about things that don’t even matter, until sleep overtakes them both.

-

That morning Lili wakes up first, eyes opening up to a room that looks like something out of a magazine. Everything is either pink or white, soft pastels coloring the room and the morning light making random bejeweled and glittery items sparkle. It’s an interesting contrast in comparison to the parts of the room that sink into the ground, pits of murky swamp water sprinkled around the room. When she sits up, back aching, Mei’s familiar tilts its head towards her slowly before flicking out it’s long tongue. 

“Her name is Vinh,” Mei croaks, her lacy pink eyemask slid up to her forehead. For such a charming girl she’s obviously not a morning person, body hidden beneath her covers and only her head visible. Lili looks to Vinh, smiling and extending a little wave. She gets a tongue flicker in response. 

“What species is she?” She watches as Vinh slides out from the water, dragging herself slowly to a spot of sunlight to bask in. Mei’s face pinches up, eyes closed. 

“Uh… Asian water monitor.” She’s scratching up into her hair now, snuggling down against her collar bone and looking as though she could fall back asleep any moment. 

“I’m glad that you didn’t get something fluffy.” That has Mei smiling, her eyes still closed. 

“Me too.” 

-

That morning she has breakfast with Mei, Elizabeta, and their familiars, Vinh and Vladimir, respectively. Her parents seem equal parts troubled and relieved when they see her walking by but they leave her be, which she’s thankful for. She doesn’t need to relive last night with them right now or explain to them why Gilbert’s locked away in his tower and not acting as her personal human repellent right now. 

Over breakfast Elizabeta rants and raves about Vladimir to them, the little black bat chewing away at some fruit and occasionally stopping to squeak at her when she says something a little rude. Seeing their back and forth makes her smile despite how she feels a little bitter, their exchange so different from her and Gilbert’s own. Elizabeta even rubs him between his little black ears, laughing when squeaks at her for it. 

Mei on the other hand is just adorable with Vinh. There’s no other way to describe her cooing and the way that they interact with each other, Vinh eating from her hands and sitting in her lap like a content house cat. They make quite the contrast, but they make it cute. 

Lili’s relieved that Elizabeta doesn’t ask about Gilbert for the entirety of their meal, knowing that Mei most likely tipped her off. If there earlier behavior from the festival is anything to judge them by, they’re good people, and they won’t go around spreading malicious rumours about her. 

The conversation switches to clubs at the end of the meal, Mei gushing about the art club and Elizabeta, interestingly enough, talking about the Sewing Club with equal enthusiasm. 

“I didn’t think you were the type to sew,” Lili admits, confused when Mei and Elizabeta share a laugh between them. Vinh seems very focused on getting the piece of crab that’s bouncing with Mei’s laughter. 

“I’m not.” Elizabeta rolls another grape towards Vladimir who catches it. “You don’t sew in the Sewing Club, you just do activities with your familiar. Sometimes they raise money for different charities, which looks good if you’re going to an academy,” she explains, leaning on one hand and looking up to glance at Lili before looking back down at Vladimir. It makes a lot more sense that Arafa wanted her to join it now, but it also embarrasses her to think that it’s mandatory that she attend. When Gilbert comes up in her mind, she shoves him out and busies herself with talking about the club with Elizabeta. 

“You should join too Mei! It’ll be fun.” Elizabeta jabs at Mei with her elbow, who jabs back. 

“I can’t join two clubs at once, that’s too much.” The conversation melds back into goofing around, Elizabeta trying to get Mei to succumb and join the Sewing Club with them. It’s fun talking to people her own age, or at least people a lot closer to her age. For a little while she can forget about Gilbert and her anxiety about starting school, comforted by the idea of being able to meet up with the two of them throughout her class schedule. 

When they go back to the dorms Mei and Elizabeta agree to split up, each of them wanting to spend alone time with their familiars like it’s advised to over the break. Mei doesn’t say anything to her until Elizabeta’s slipped into her dorm, stopping her before she can reach her door.

“You’re going back in there?” she asks, her eyebrows creased with worry. Lili drops her eyes to the floor, looking at Vinh who blinks back up her as if agreeing with her witch. It must seem risky or stupid, but she doesn’t think Gilbert would get physical with her. He could have if he wanted to last time, but instead let her go; of course, this doesn’t mean that she’s not upset for him screaming at her. 

Besides, whether he likes it or not, they’re bonded. They need each other. She doesn’t think there’s a way to reverse that either. 

“I’ll be okay.” 

“Just be safe,” Mei looks unconvinced, rubbing her arm uncomfortably. Lili nods, taking a step back and turning towards her dorm. Behind her she can hear Vinh trudge across the floor and Mei opening up the door for her, the two of them shuffling inside. She waits until Mei’s door closes, standing in front of her own for a moment, feeling awfully tiny. 

Admittedly she stands outside for awhile, chickening out every time she goes for the door knob until someone else enters the hallway. Social pressure pushes her to enter ultimately, not wanting to seem like a weirdo who’s too nervous to enter her room or worse, like someone trying to break into another person’s room. 

Slipping inside quietly as possible she finds the floor thankfully void of Gilbert. A quick look up confirms his place at the top of his tower, the relief washing over her making her limbs weightless. Locking the door behind her she spots what most likely made the crash from before, spotting the wood stand meant for Gilbert to sit on next to her desk flipped on the ground. 

Although she approaches her desk to grab a few things, she doesn’t move to fix the stand. It feels as though if she did it’d be crossing some imaginary line, but also, she’s not sure if she can move it with how heavy it seems. Besides, it’s Gilbert’s mess. She’s not his maid. 

This time, she leaves without saying a word, grabbing her school bag and keys, leaving for the library until dinner. 

-

She doesn’t tell Basch and Roderich about it during dinner. 

The good girl side of her feels guilty about not telling them, but she thinks that it’s for the best. She doesn’t need them to fight every battle for her and at this point, she thinks if she forced Gilbert into confrontation, things would only get worse between them. Last night showed that. 

It’s not like they don’t know somethings up though, gently pressing her for details. Gilbert’s refusal to come outside is a red flag in itself, but Lili manages to iron out their worries and soothe them by talking about other things. When she brings up how she’s joining the Sewing Club Roderich and Basch both praise her for it, talking in length about the advantages of joining and all the different kinds of experience she’ll get. 

That night when she goes back to her dorm, Gilbert’s perch is still knocked over. 

She doesn’t attempt to talk to him this time, instead getting ready for bed and then going to sleep directly after. She closes her canopy and feels safe, pretending she’s a million miles away. 

-

Thursday passes without much event. 

She doesn’t rush out of the dorm, but she doesn’t stick around to ferment in the tension in between them. His perch remains untouched, still knocked to the side on the ground like a physical reminder of their straining bond. 

The only time she interacts with him is to tell him that school starts tomorrow, which means that he’ll have to attend Intro to Spell Work and Essential Spells in the morning with her. He doesn’t react, per the status quo, but Lili makes sure to stress that the classes are mandatory and that if he didn’t come, he’d eventually get in trouble for it. She’s sure that Gilbert wouldn’t like to have a second meeting with Arafa and Bast. Or at least, that’s what she’s hoping.

-

It’s almost funny, because when the first day of school rolls around she usually gets nervous thinking about who she’ll sit next to in class or about the clothes she’ll wear. Now though those pre-jitters seem so simple that they don’t bother her at all. She’s more preoccupied brushing her teeth, thinking about how she’ll address Gilbert who’s still roosting at the top of his tower. 

She double checks that she has the right books, fixes her robes and her hair, and stands at the front door with her key in her hand and bag slung over her shoulders. It’s still a little early to be getting up, but the cafeteria is open at any hour and she always likes to hit her classes early to ensure she gets a good seat. It makes her worry a bit though, unsure of how Gilbert will react to being woken up so early. Although, all he seems to do is sleep. 

“Gilbert? It’s time for our classes.” She calls out, hand gripping the door knob and keys tight in her hands. When Gilbert rustles after a moment, slowly and leisurely stretching, it’s something like an event with how little she gets to see him do normal things, or just move in general. She watches as he creeps down the branches, like a cockatiel descending in it’s cage, only with a lot more finesse. 

When he flops to the ground, it hardly makes a sound besides the clack of his feet. He’s still pointedly looking away from her but he walks forwards, expression a blank slate. 

Without saying anything she opens the door and they both leave the dorms. Thankfully they don’t run into anyone that she knows in the halls and they make it to the cafeteria undisturbed. It seems like when people are up this early they can’t seem to muster the strength to care about anything except their coffee or finishing a summer’s worth of reading in an hour. 

“This is part of the cafeteria,” Lili tosses over her shoulder as they walk into the wide outdoor area with many tables of varying shapes, each decorated with large silver bowls and plates. Most of the larger familiars would eat outside for convenience, but all kinds were welcome on the inside of the cafeteria as well as long as they didn’t make a mess playing with their food. Lili had grown accustomed by now to seeing some witch’s toss around raw meat for stimulus for some of familiar’s.

When she sits down at one of the tables on the outskirts of the area, food magically rises from the bottom of the plates and bowls, giving her a wide array of dishes to chose from. There’s eggs, bacon, cereal, and most other breakfast foods. Setting down her things she grabs a plate and a fork, dragging some waffles onto her plate. 

As she expected, when Gilbert approaches the table one of the largest silver bowls fills with red raw meat along with a few other varieties and some clean water. It’s not an appealing sight to eat in front of but she ignores it the best she can as she squeezes syrup onto her waffles and dumps on a few strawberries. 

Gilbert, to her surprise, has better table manners than she thought he would. He takes large chunks of meat, bone and all, and dumps his head back and swallows them whole with a few jerks. His diet isn’t surprising, nor is the amount he eats, but it’s still amazing how much he manages to pack away. Even after she’s done eating and she’s finished her orange juice he’s still going at it for a little while, beak scraping the bottom of the bowl. 

Because they got up early she can afford to let him stuff it away for a few more minutes until he’s satisfied, sipping from his dish of water. When he finishes up she stands up from the table silently, checking her wristwatch to assure that they’re on time before slinging on her bag.

He follows her without fuss and they make it to their first ever high school classroom perfectly on time, only three students arriving ahead of them. When they enter the teacher, a frail tall man, gives the two of them a double take before slapping on a smile and nodding at her. She gives a soft good morning, walking up a few steps past the first few rows.

With so many different familiar shapes and sizes, most classrooms are designed with their comfort in mind. This particular room is a lecture hall with less space in between rows in the front for smaller familiars and more in the back for the larger ones. She stops about midway, turning back to Gilbert who pointedly looks away from her. 

“Where would you be most comfortable?” she asks, stepping back to let him ahead of her if he chooses to be. Of course they’re still not on good footing, but she figures that it’d be dumb to sit somewhere he’d be uncomfortable at for the rest of the year. 

For a second she thinks that he’s going to ignore her again, but she’s pleasantly surprised when he brushes past her and walks up a few stairs before turning into the row second to the top. He plops down right at the middle of the long desk, slumping and resting his head on the desk in a bored, disinterested fashion. Following after him, she grabs the seat next to him and starts pulling out her book for the class, thumbing it open to the first chapter. 

Maybe, she thinks, it won’t be so bad. 

-

If Lili had to rank how her first day of classes went on a scale of one to ten, she’d probably say a solid six. Considering her situation with Gilbert right now though, a six is a pretty safe, good number. 

Of course when other students start to trickle into the classroom they get their eyeful of the two of them, but it doesn’t last for long when Gilbert bluntly stares back until they drop their eyes away. It must be a weird ego thing, she thinks, but if it keeps people from pushing them under a microscope then it’s fine with her. 

The first portion of Essential Spells is easy, going over the short first chapter of their textbook which Lili has already read. It’s boring but it’s entertaining if only because of the first day of school vibe that has everyone sitting up straight and taking notes, all of their grades set at perfect A’s still. Gilbert slumps his head on the desk next to her right until the teacher asks them to pull out their wands to perform a simple spell. 

As everyone’s pulling their wands out of nooks and crannies Gilbert perks up, head craning around to take a peak at the many different shapes and sizes. Lili doesn’t have to search too hard to find her wand, the thick handle of it nearly sticking out the end of her robes. She grabs it by the end, pausing before she pulls it out to take a peek at her neighbor’s wands. 

The girl to the right of her pulls out a polished and dainty wooden wand, a series of crystals perfectly aligned down it’s side and framed by little circles of gold. With a glance to her right, past Gilbert who’s thankfully twisting around to look behind them, she can spy an elegant pink coral wand. Fresh dew twinkles on it and slivers of crystals decorate it like stripes as a masculine hand loosely waves it around in his hand. 

Snapping her eyes back down, she tries not to feel insecure as she pulls out her burnt wand, the weight of it calming in her hand. Starring straight ahead at the board she tries to smother her insecurities, holding her back straight and proud. Her wand was expensive and well made, even if it didn’t look it, and if someone mocked her for it they probably weren’t worth knowing anyways. 

Out of the corner of her vision she can see Gilbert twist back around, facing the board before turning towards her the slightest bit. She can feel his eyes on her like a phantom hand and she clutches her wand tighter, focusing on an imaginary point in the classroom. 

When he softly huffs through his nose before pointedly turning away, her face colors pink and she grips her wand tighter in her hand. Any of her meager pride before has been swept away with his breath, but she shakes it off, trying to focus on the lesson at hand. 

“Alright,” the teacher says, climbing up the stairs to the back of the classroom, “I want you all to rip out a piece of paper from your notebook. If you don’t have one yet, which you should, borrow some from a neighbor.” There’s the sound of shuffling and clasps being undone, people pulling out their notebooks. Lili opens her’s up to the first clean page, tearing it out and crushing it in her hands. It feels good to do, her hand squeezing the little ball tight. 

“Everyone got a piece? Good. Now throw your ball at the board.” There’s a little hum of excitement from the students like how there is anytime a teacher invites you to do something that’s taboo. Paper balls sail in arches down to the front of the classroom, hitting against the bored and the teacher’s desk. Thankfully, she’s not one of the people sitting at the bottom who has to worry about stray balls. 

“Now watch me.” A classroom of heads turn to look up at the teacher, watching as he extends his arm with wand in hand. 

“Veni,” he says, voice perfectly clear. At the same time he flicks his wrist and then as if someone’s thrown one of the paper balls back to him, it sails in an arch over their heads and right into his palm. He throws back the ball and slowly does the spell once more, explaining each movement, before allowing the class to try. 

It looks simple, but she’s a little nervous to try it. It’s the first time she’s attempted to do a spell since the ceremony and while there isn’t any possibility that things could burst into flames, she’s still got the jitters. Some students do the spell off the bat with ease, others struggle to concentrate and end up dropping the ball mid air, and there’s a few who can’t seem to pull off the spell.

She practices the motion with her hand, once, twice, and then casts the spell, eyes glued to one of the paper balls at the front of the classroom. With the little nudge of magic she put into the spell the ball only rolls slightly towards her. When she casts it again she exhales sharply, her magic stifled and cut off in a way that she’s never felt before. It feels like an annoyingly tight corks been stuffed in the way between her and her power, keeping it just out of her reach like a game of monkey in the middle.

She glances at Gilbert but he doesn’t seem even vaguely interested in the lesson anymore, head slumped once more on top of the desk. She knew that when witch’s got their familiars that their magic could be difficult to tap into or could overflow as they learned to regulate and use it, but she thought that she’d experience the latter with Gilbert. Rolling her shoulders a little, she tries to cast the spell again and pushes against the blockage hard. When the ball only bounces like it’s been flicked, she furrows her eyebrows. 

She’s among the last few in class that are struggling, the teacher slowly coming around to give some tips and help the stragglers. Not wanting to make a bad impression on the first day, she casts the spell again with a flourish, slamming against the blockage to get the desired result. 

Only, this time the blockage has completely disappeared. When she rushes forwards she can’t stop herself from smacking into her magic, the paper ball suddenly rushing towards her so fast she can’t move quick enough to catch it. It smacks against her forehead and rebounds it hits her so hard, falling down onto a girl sitting ahead of her.

“You put a little too much behind that, Miss Zwingli,” the teacher sounds sympathetic but the class around her chuckles. The tips of her ears go red as she apologizes to the girl, taking back the ball. When she turns and sees Gilbert gently shaking with what can only be laughter, the realization that he made the block purposefully hits her like a bottle over the head. She squeezes the paper ball tight with both her hands, fantasizing about nailing Gilbert in the face with it. 

Thankfully, the next class is just a long lecture and notes, so she doesn’t have to do any spell work. Gilbert seems bored again, but he doesn’t fall asleep and he’s facing the board so she really can’t tell if he’s paying attention or not. She really can’t tell what he’s thinking any of the time, their bond a muddy puddle in between them that she can’t see through. All she can tell is if what he’s feeling is negative or positive and even that is unclear a lot of the time, the two sensations mixing together and becoming indistinguishable. Like the wine Basch and Roderich had let her taste in Italy, she can’t taste the notes of fruit or smoke, only something bitter. 

When class is over and the teacher dismisses them, she turns to Gilbert as she’s packing away her things and people trickle by past them. 

“Gilbert, before we go back to the dorms we’re going to stop by the club fair.” She tries to keep her tone but it still sounds a little clipped around the edges. She can’t help being angry with him though after that little prank in class. When she glances at him he seems as apathetic as usual, which somehow just makes it worse. 

When they leave together they’re given a wide berth from the other students and unlike last time she walked with Gilbert, it’s more annoying than convenient. When she glances behind her, she’s shocked at the amount of space that he puts between them. It’s not even a huge offense like he’s spit in her cereal or something, but it feels that way when they attract so much attention when they walk. 

Thankfully, the club fair is only a small detour from their route back to the dorms. It’s like a miniature festival, little stands scattered everywhere across one of the many fields on campus. There’s the smell of festival food being cooked and there’s even some places that have strung up lights, balloons, and games that are relevant to their particular club. As she looks around she’s surprised to see as many sports teams as she does, never having associated sports with magic. It makes sense that people didn’t just lose interest in sports when they became witch’s, but as a bookworm, the whole thing is a little disillusioning. 

Some of the better game concepts that she passed by included the wrestling club’s arm wrestling booth, the astronomy club’s pin the tail on the constellation, and a quiz game with little treat prizes and stuffed toys by the herbology club. The only one she paused to stop at was the art club’s game, which consisted of a game of darts with balloons filled with paint that symbolized different points. She only stops by because Mei loops her into it, calling her out from the crowd and egging her into spending a little of her lavish allowance. 

When she finally spots the Sewing Club she picks up the pace a little, eyes locking onto Miss Arlovskaya and the long white snake wrapped around her shoulders. It looks like they’re one of the clubs that have set up a food stall, a brown haired boy busy making a bundle of cotton candy for some paying students. His familiar, or at least she’s assuming, is puffing out it’s chest and perching on one of the chairs at the stall like it’s his personal duty to maintain it and it’s customers. 

She’s running over what breed of eagle he could possibly be in her mind when he turns towards her, body lax before a jolt goes through his body. His form changes from his perfect posture to hunched, his wings a flurry at his sides as he gives off a sharp wailing cry that makes her freeze in her tracks. The boy and Miss Arlovskaya seem even more startled, the two of them twisting around to look at the bird just as he launches from his perch and goes straight for her. 

She goes stiff where she stands, unsure of if the bird is flying towards her or if there’s some evil doer behind her that needs arresting behind her. In a cold panic she turns around to see who’s behind her just in time to see Gilbert coming right for her. Not knowing what to do, she stumbles back against the stall behind her and ducks, eyes closed when she hears Gilbert give off a victorious screech and a gust of wind make her hair fly back. 

When she cracks open her eyes she see’s that the fair has come to a standstill, students looking up at the sky in quiet awe. She joins them, head tilting up to see Gilbert’s wings fully stretched against the evening sky, swirling around and calling out to the eagle who responds just as passionately. When they grab at each other with their feet she’s worried for a moment, watching them swing and dip through the air, but when no blood is shed she comes to the realization that Gilbert is playing with this other bird -

and she can feel it. 

It’s one of the strongest sensations that he’s ever shared through the bond, perhaps unknowingly in all of his excitement. She lifts her palm to her heart, basking in the glow of all of Gilbert’s sheer joy, feeling as though the heat of a sparkler is kissing against her and warming her skin. The brunt of the sensation is so breathtaking that she forgets about all of his earlier slights, staring up into the sky to look at him in amazement that mimics those next to her. He’s laughing, his wings spread to their full stunning length as he sails around, casting a shadow on the fair people as he sails. 

When she looks back down her eyes connect with the brown haired boys, his stance mimicking her own. He’s grinning, hand over his heart and his other tight around his wand. Miss Arlovskaya also has her wand drawn, her hands clasped together around it as she smiles up at the two birds. 

Walking over with jello legs she approaches the stand, the crowd slowly dispersing as they realize that the two birds would be going at it for some time. When she reaches the stand the boy actually skirts around and out from behind it, arms opening up my wide to give her a brief hug that she accepts despite being confused by it. When he pulls back from it he even gives her quick kisses to each cheek, which is even more puzzling. 

“You must be Gilbert’s witch!” he all but cheers, the long curl that comes from his hair bobbing with his words. Up close, she can see the little details in his wand, like it’s uncommon length and how the end of it has been dunked in white paint that’s beginning to flake. Was that on purpose? 

She nods and he clasps his hands together, looking at her in a way that’s so adoring and loving she almost feels awkward. 

“I’m Ludwig’s partner, Feliciano Vargas. I’m so glad we could finally meet and they could reunite,” he sighs in a contented way, glancing up at the two of them. They’ve seemed to calm down a little bit and have reached higher in the air, their caws distant sounds. 

“Reunite…?” she asks with an awkward smile. Feliciano’s smile drops a smidge at the edges and her heart starts to sink. 

“Gilbert didn’t tell you…?” he asks, an open ended question. The smile thins out like she’s personally ran over it when she shakes her head, all that’s left being a sad, sympathetic thing. 

“They’re brothers.” She bites the inside of her cheek, eyes flickering away for a moment. She hates how he looks at her now. 

“We still don’t know each other very well, our ritual was only a week ago or so,” she tries to reassure him, but he looks lost in thought, soft brown eyes suddenly sharp and splitting as he looks right through her. 

“I know I mean, I understand, I had just thought... I hoped…” he trails off, staring at her so intensely that she has to look towards the ground. Then, just like that, the switch is flicked off and he’s back to giving off that happy-go-lucky glow. 

“Never mind all that! Please, take a seat over here,” he gestures to behind the stand, ushering her behind it. It’s the start of a long conversation that fades into the early night, the two of them helping Miss Arlovskaya run the stand as they chat. 

Despite how awkward their initial introduction was, the conversation goes smoothly and she even has fun. Feliciano is funny and has a knack for telling stories, his hands waving around and his pitch changing as he impersonates people. He can’t seem to talk enough about Ludwig, describing him in a way that seems completely opposite of how he seems with adjectives like, easily flustered and actually a sweetheart. She wonders how Ludwig would feel about him saying that. 

She also learns that he’s been in the Sewing Club since his first year and that he’s two years her senior, which comes as a shock because of his youthful appearance. When she asks about his schedule she also gets the impression that he’s smarter than he looks, taking a long list of advanced classes including one of Basch’s enchanting classes. She’d have to ask Basch about him later.

“Ludwig doesn’t really like to get too mushy, you know,” Italy starts off when she asks him about what he knows about Gilbert, “but I think he secretly thinks Gilbert is cool. He says that he talks too much and overbearing, but sometimes he’ll talk about how Gilbert did this or that and his eyes get all… misty,” Feliciano is smiling softly when he says it, winding up another stick of cotton candy as Lili tries to rub some of the stickiness off her fingers. She can’t imagine Gilbert ever talking too much, quietly staring down at her hands. 

“But I don’t think he’d ever admit it,” Feliciano tacks on and laughs, handing over the wad of cotton candy to a student with bright face paint. Taking her money he opens the register with a clang and starts filing away the bills. Miss Arlovskaya is busy, chattering to a small group of students about the perks of joining the Sewing Club. 

“I’m glad you’re joining the club,” Feliciano says suddenly, taking a seat next to her. He’s stripping off his gloves, rubbing his chalky hands together. “I think it’ll really help.” 

It occurred to her awhile ago that Feliciano must know that she did the ceremony late because of Ludwig, but he’s never brought it up directly thankfully, nor does he seem to hold it against her any. Despite being only a little older than her, he seems so much wiser at sometimes in between being downright goofy. 

“I hope so.” she mumbles, still rubbing at her hands despite the stickiness being long gone. Feliciano pats her knee.

-

When Gilbert and Ludwig fly back to them it’s like Gilbert’s flipped personalities. 

Ludwig takes his place on Feliciano’s shoulders, his weight making them sag, and gives Lili a polite nod. Gilbert on the other hand acts like the closer he gets to her the more of his happiness she leeches away, until his loose comfortable air is back to being completely rigid and apathetic. Feliciano tells her not to be a stranger, giving her another hug before they split their different ways. When he says goodbye to Gilbert she’s almost humiliated when Gilbert gives a short squawk back. 

They make their way back to the dorms in silence and upon entering their room, Gilbert makes a B line for his tower. It’s not like the first time they entered where he barreled up, but it still makes her feel bad. 

She showers, brushes her teeth, and whispers goodnight knowing she won’t get a response back.


	17. Chapter 17

“Feliciano Vargas?” Basch says after a sip of his black coffee. Roderich looks up from his salad, stabbing into a chunk of tomato. They’ve agreed to have dinner three times out of the week once the school year started, wanting to give Lili time to bond with her friends. 

“He used to be an idiot,” Basch says dismissively, taking a bite of his buttered toast. Lili chokes on her orange juice, sputtering into her glass. 

“Basch!” Roderich scolds, tomato and greens paused in the air and halfway to his mouth. Basch shrugs his shoulders, his eyes staring off into the distance as he thinks. It’s a little reminder of how blunt he can be to people he doesn’t care about. 

“He was though. He didn’t apply himself, was failing his classes, and cried all the time. He and his familiar had some blowout fights and he got into some deep water cause of it. Something must have changed over the summer though, cause the next year he became best in his class.” Basch takes another bite of his toast, ignoring the way that Roderich sighs and stabs back into his salad. “Why?” 

“His familiar is Gilbert’s brother,” she answers, throat still burning a little from the orange juice. She takes a bite of her vegetable wrap, watching as both of her parents eyes light up. 

“Really?” Roderich asks and she nods, still chewing. 

“Is he the older brother or younger?” Basch brushes the crumbs off his fingers as he finishes off his piece of toast. 

“Older,” she says after she swallows and the two of them hum at the same time, looking back down at their meals. “Is it really okay that you just told me all that stuff about Feliciano?” 

Picking up his coffee, Basch shrugs. “I don’t know, are you gonna tell anyone that I told you?” 

“No,” Lili replies without hesitation. Basch smirks from behind his coffee at the same time that Roderich shakes his head, stabbing into his salad.

“Then it’s fine.” He takes a short sip of his coffee and Lili smiles despite herself.

She always thought he was such a stickler for rules too. 

-

Through the weekend Gilbert ignores her as usual and fearing a repeat of the last time she confronted him, she doesn’t try to strike up a conversation. Though he moves around their dorm now, or at least he does when she’s not there. 

She knows this because when she comes home Sunday from the library he’s missing from his usual spot up in his tower. Hearing a quick series of splashes from the bathroom she realizes he’s bathing, which is honestly kind of relieving. He wasn’t starting to smell or anything, but she had been wondering when he would or how often birds need to.

Following social conduct she doesn’t barge in on him even though she has to pee when she comes in, instead leaving to borrow Elizabeta’s. Unfortunately she can’t get a good look around her room because it’s pitch black and it becomes very clear when Elizabeta opens up the door that she’s been sleeping, still wrinkled in her sleep clothes, but she does get to relieve herself. 

When she slips back into her room Gilbert is still doing whatever bird’s do in the bathtub, the sound of feathers flittering bouncing off the walls. Quietly she makes her way to her desk, pulling out some of her books and reviewing things for her astronomy and other classes. The air feels better than usual in comparison to the cold shoulder she usually gets when she comes back to the dorm. 

When Gilbert finally pokes his head out from the bathroom and comes clacking out, he purposefully doesn’t look at her even though she looks at him. It’s a little shock when he doesn’t go straight up to his tower, instead clacking over to one of his perch’s nearest to the window and hopping onto it. Quietly chewing on the bottom of her pen she watches as he begins to preen, carding through his feathers and fluffing them out. 

She’s dazed for a moment, watching as he pulls one of his long tail feathers through his beak, when she realizes that he’s stopped to give her a long dry look. Straightening up she pulls her pen from her mouth and looks away, tucking her hair behind her ears and leaning forwards over her books. 

After awhile she forgets he’s there, the sound of him preening fading into the background. She only looks up from her books to see him disappear up into his tower again in a flurry of white. Continuing to study, Feliciano’s words roll around in her head. 

Overbearing, talks too much. 

Cool.

-

Monday classes are uneventful, being mostly just introductory. Her required bestiary class is fun though; taught by Miss Arlovskaya it’s a mixed bag of students from every year but with mostly second years. The class clown has sat behind her by chance so she gets to hear everyone of his little mutters and the conversations that he has with his friends when they’re suppose to be paying attention. 

Gilbert goes to dinner with her that afternoon with Mei and Elizabeta, much to her surprise. She’s always kind of shocked when he does pretty much anything, but it shouldn’t be that surprising that he has to eat sometimes. It’s interesting to see him interact with Vladimir, teasing him by pushing him around with his beak and laughing when Vladimir squeaks and flutters around his head. Vinh makes it clear that he’s not going to put up with his shit though, pouncing protectively over her food and alarmingly fast. It makes her realize that Gilbert can be kind of a bully, though Elizabeta insists that Vladimir is fine and having fun. 

Seeing Gilbert interact with anyone else is frustrating because of how quickly he snaps back to apathy; it’s obvious that he doesn’t like her and it makes things awkward when Mei and Elizabeta are around. They don’t mention it thankfully, but it makes her feel terrible when she tells Gilbert it’s time to go and he acts like he’s trudging back to a dungeon. 

When she tells Gilbert that night that they’ll have classes in the morning and club in the afternoon, she feels like she’s invisible to one of the only people that she wants to be seen by.

-

She wakes up in the middle of the night to a nightmare that she can’t remember, scrambling out of bed and soaked with sweat, thinking that she’s still in the hospital from her past. She can’t get herself to sleep for half an hour after that, holding onto her wand and running her fingers over the clusters of gems to ground herself. 

-

In the second half of Essential Spells the teacher demonstrates a simplistic color changing spell by changing an apple bright pink, then purple, and then back to a lush red. Most of the class seems excited to try it but she’s anxious, twisting her wand around in her hands and mimicking the teacher’s hand emotions as he does a few more demonstrations just for fun. When the teacher finally gives the class an OK, she pulls out a fat pink eraser from her bag and clears her desk, just in case. 

“Gilbert,” she whispers, stomach twisting itself into knots, “please don’t…” she doesn’t bother to finish when Gilbert turns his head to the side, busying himself looking at nothing. Frowning, she turns to her eraser and holds out her wand. 

She only puts a moderate amount of strength behind the spell but she knows she goes wrong before she even’s finished casting it. That electric feeling crawls up her arm and the sensation reminds her of dumping too much sugar in her tea, the eraser violently splattering with color beneath her. 

It’s a small enough explosion that it doesn’t get on anyone else, but it gets all over her desk like a water balloon’s gone off or someone nailed her in the face with a paintball. Yellow’s splattered against her robes and dripping from her hair. The only perk is that it hides her blush and how she blinks away the start of tears in her eyes which are thankfully gone by the time the teacher casts a spell which tidies up the mess. 

“Miss Zwingli, see me after class please.” Her heart drops in her chest. A few kids in the back of the room make a long oohing sounds and she sinks into her seat as the teacher scolds them. She doesn’t bother to look at Gilbert this time, not wanting to seem him laugh. 

After class, the first thing her teacher asks her is, “Have you two considered joining the Sewing Club?”

His face lights up when she tells him she already has, his eyebrows lifting over his thick glasses. Thankfully he doesn’t scold her, but he gives her a few tips when she describes the overwhelming rush she gets when she casts spells now and they repeat the spell at a safe distance until she can overcome the tide. It takes her three tries before the colorful splatter is contained to an ooze that she’d seen some others conjure in class. 

“Remember, practice, practice, and then practice some more.” He smiles, sending the two of them on their way to their next class. 

Thankfully the teacher for Intro to Spells is the uptight sort, so they’re still practicing wand movements and rehearsing instead of actually casting. Some of it is history mixed in too and a little about how the magic actually works, but not in depth enough to be confusing as Lili knows it can be in later classes. 

She tries to listen, but it’s already stuff she’s read so she gives herself the okay to doze off a little, replaying the eraser incident repeatedly in her head till it’s exaggerated like a bad horror movie. Black and white, the eraser being the only color, and the laughter stretching around her like shadows on the wall. She was determined not to be the screw up and to start fresh once she cut her hair, but it feels like nothing’s changed. Different world, same girl. 

When club time swings around she’s trying to string things together, putting on her brave face when she meets up with Elizabeta. It’s a pleasant surprise when Vladimir latches onto her when he sees her, crawling up her shoulder to chirp into her ear randomly. Elizabeta and her laugh at how eccentric he can be sometimes while she teaches her how he likes to be stroked for the first time, her fingertips rolling over his silky fur a few times before he latches himself back onto Elizabeta’s chest. If Gilbert thinks anything about this he doesn’t voice it. 

With her spirits lifted, club starts. It takes place near the edge of the forest near where Miss Arlovskaya keeps some of the magical beasts and creatures in a nearby farm like structure. As Miss Arlovskaya urges them all to take a seat in a circle they can hear sounds from the animals nearby, strange gurgles and caws. It’s strangely humbling. 

Miss Arlovskaya sits at one end of the circle, white snake coiled all around her and slithering out it’s tongue from time to time. She’s an older woman with gray hairs coming into her platinum blonde, but she has a youthful air about her, a little sunflower perched behind her ear. She brings a certain peace to their little circle of misfits, people of every kind sitting around. It’s a chance for Lili to scope out the crowd, eyes flickering over different familiars and faces. 

Things start off with Miss Arlovskaya introducing herself and her familiar, who shakes her tail in greeting at everyone. She explains the point of the club is creating deep lasting ties with people, making memories, and donating to charities, and she rambles for some time about different activities they’d eventually get to and big events in the club. Gilbert, who’s sitting to her right, softly trills to Ludwig though, thankfully, he rebukes him often in favor of listening to their instructor. 

“So, for our first activity, I’m going to call through each of your names and you’ll introduce yourselves, but there’s a twist. Your familiar will be introducing you and you’ll be introducing your familiar and you’ll both say something nice or something that you find interesting about each other. It’ll make it easier for me to remember you and it’ll also introduce you to the class, or at least half of it,” Miss Arlovskaya’s voice is twinged with sweetness, her hands clasped in front of her before she takes up her clipboard and pen. Lili’s already scrambling for the words, tucking a hair behind her ear as she tries to sneak a glance at Gilbert. Unusually, he’s staring at the ground, eyes flickering up to catch her peeking. 

“I’ll go first.” Miss Arlovskaya extends her hands out, to her side where her familiar’s head rises, slithering and growing taller for the class to see. “This is Natasha and she’s really good at spooking people.” It’s surprisingly honest. Natasha doesn’t seem to be bothered by it, slithering and hissing up a storm as she introduces Miss Arlovskaya. 

“Awh, thank you Natasha,” Miss Arlovskaya says, stroking her snake before moving on to call on the next person. When Lili realizes she isn’t going in alphabetical order she gets more nervous, hands picking at the grass as people introduce themselves. 

“This is Ivan and he really likes sunflowers,” One boy says demurely, gesturing to his familiar with his hands, which happens to be a large polar bear. He’s sitting rather cutely, with his feet right out and his paws hanging at his sides like he’s human. When it’s his turn to speak he lets out a series of bear sounds, patting his witch on the side. Out of the corner of her eye, Lili can see Gilbert do something similar to a scoff and Ludwig reprimanding him with a flap of his feathers. 

“Elizabeta Héderváry and Vladimir Popescu?” Miss Arlovskaya checks something away at her clipboard. 

“This is Vlad and he’s got the cutest little button nose probably ever,” Elizabeta pokes at him and he squeaks. Most of the class laughs at her antics but the only thing Lili can muster is a smile, thinking of what Gilbert will say as Vladimir lets out a series of unintelligible squeaks next to her. Some of the familiars in the group let out their own unique laughs at what he says. 

A few more people are called before Miss Arlovskaya picks Feliciano, who goes on for so long complimenting Ludwig that the teacher has to stop him. Lili’s too busy to catch most of the other introductions, rehearsing her lines in her head. She’s pretty sure it’d kill Gilbert to say something polite about her. 

“Lili Zwingli and Gilbert Beilschmidt?” Miss Arlovskaya checks off her paper before looking up at them. For a moment she’s speechless, mind blank as she fumbles for the words that she’d rehearsed. 

“This is Gilbert,” she finally finds the words, saying them in a rush, “and he has really pretty eyes,” she finishes lamely, eyes glued to a flower on the ground that’s out of reach. Her cheeks are so pink that she can practically feel the heat radiating from them like she’s been left out in the sun too long. 

“That’s so sweet, Lili! Now Gilbert?” Miss Arlovskaya praises her but she’s not really listening. Something compels her to look at Gilbert, which is a stupid, stupid decision, because she finds him looking at her with a bewildered expression. 

Then he snaps his head away, feathers ruffling as he squawks something out. Almost immediately she can hear Ludwig bark at something and she looks back to the ground, the tips of her ears burning. She’s never been so upset to be right before, the humiliation she feels bone deep, making a hollow place behind her ribs. The circle’s gone dead quiet. 

“Mr. Beilschmidt I hope you know that I can understand everything you’re saying. Now, try again,” Miss Arlovskaya’s voice isn’t scary, rather, it’s just the kind of uncomfortable that comes with an honestly nice teacher trying to be stern. Natasha also seems to be saying something in a long series of hisses that makes a few of the other familiars in the circle shift uneasily. 

There’s a stretch of silence where Gilbert’s just fluffing out his feathers and shifting from foot to foot, like it’s a real struggle for him to find a single nice thing to say about her. He’s humiliated her in public before, sure, but this is on another level of entirely. Now everyone here knows how much he hates her; how she’s a failure of a witch. 

Then Gilbert says something quietly and begrudgingly, body rigid as he does it. She wishes the teacher wouldn’t force it. It just feels insincere now. 

“Thank you, Gilbert.” Miss Arlovskaya moves on and the circle all seems to collectively breathe when it moves onto the next person and then the next. Through the rest of the introductions she tries to keep down her tears, rubbing at her eyes occasionally and hoping that no one’s noticing. When Elizabeta reaches out to hold her hand she squeezes it back tight, feeling as though she’s close to her breaking point. 

For awhile after that Miss Arlovskaya talks about some other little details about the club that she didn’t get to in the beginning and then dismisses them, but not before encouraging them to stay around for the treats that she’ll bring out in a moment. A person or two volunteers to go with her but most people stay, standing up to stretch their legs and talk. As soon as Lili gets the chance, she gets up and bolts, quickly walking away and feeling as though she’s coming undone. She doesn’t care if Gilbert follows her or not. 

“Lili!” Elizabeta calls after her, rising to her feet and catching up with her. “Are you okay?” 

“I’ll be fine, you don’t have to worry. You should go back with the others.” She doesn’t know how she’s not crying yet, the tears welling up in her eyes and her voice a hollow version of itself. It feels wrong when she says it so she stops, turning towards Elizabeta and wringing her hands. 

“I’m sorry I just…” She stops to wipe away at her tears, frustrated. “I just need to be alone for awhile. Thank you though… It means a lot to me,” her voice cracks at that part, rich hot wetness making her throat too tight. She shakes her head and brings her hands to cover her face, the first of her tears coming in burning streaks. 

“Let me walk you to your dorm at least.” Elizabeta throws an arm around her shoulders and guides her there, telling her jokes that make her give ugly laughs in between her tears. It’s completely different from how Mei had comforted her, but it’s good in it’s own way too, the tears having lessened by the time she’s outside her door. After thanking Elizabeta she slips inside, throwing herself on her bed and letting out real thick sobs.

She pulls the hurt out like she’s gutting a pumpkin, hand reaching in again and again to pull out long messy globs of string that rip under the tension like roots. She thinks of the paper ball, the eraser, and Gilbert all blowing up in her face until her pillow becomes a soggy outline of her face and her skin feels like it’s been rubbed raw. 

She’s not sure how much longer she can survive this, drowning in this tension and the storm that Gilbert is. Then it hits her that she just can’t tolerate anymore of it. Gilbert can ignore her and treat her like garbage in private, she’s used to living with unsavory people, but she can’t take him doing this to her in public. Her tears dry as she replaces the hurt inside of herself with a spark of determination, sitting up on the edge of her bed and staring at the door. 

She refuses to let herself crumble after everything she’s been through to bring her to this point. She waits, holding herself and waiting for him to come in, the words building inside of her like pressure that’s begging to be popped.

It doesn’t take long for the door knob to jiggle, the door unlocked. She watches, heart speeding up as she watches Gilbert let himself in and shuts the door behind him. When he turns around he stops, staring back at her in that cruel way that she’s so familiar with. 

“Gilbert,” she starts, trembling as she slides off of her bed and approaches him. He rears his head back before he straightens it, body language turning aggressive as he tries to make himself larger despite his already mammoth size in comparison to her. She doesn’t care though, can’t bring herself to as she places herself a few feet from him and looks up into his eyes. 

“I know that you hate me and that’s fine, but you can’t keep doing this,” she forces herself to be loud and clear despite how her voice warbles, her choppy breathing making it jump. It scares her to stand in front of him like this but the confrontation in itself is also making panic rip into her, the desperation to get out what she says overcoming everything. Gilbert looks annoyed, but he looks downright pissed when she cuts him off when she tries to move around her. 

“I am serious,” she spits the words like venom and quivers under Gilbert’s glare, her heart pounding in her ears as she continues, “I know you’re angry and that you’ve been hurt but I’ve been hurt too!” The tears come naturally as she hiccups through her words, staring up at Gilbert with a vulnerability that burns her from the inside out. Her hand is balled up so tight it hurts, grabbing at her heart through her robes. 

“And it’s not fair, so tell me that you’ll stop!” she sobs, saying the words with everything she has, her voice dripping with her desperation. It’s so hard to just stand in front of him and meet his eyes that slice through her so effortlessly. It’s the kind of look that could make paint curl off walls and flowers shrivel up, like they’ve been caught underneath the sun.

“Tell me, Gilbert!” she all but shouts, taking a step closer as hot tears slide down her chin. She can’t tell what he’s thinking but he looks taunt and ready to snap, body rigid like a clenched jaw. 

Then, like ice pouring down her back, he speaks. His beak lifts just the tiniest bit with his call, like he’s sneering down at her. Only then does she step to the side, letting him move. 

“Thank you,” she hiccups, breath catching again in her chest as he moves by. She stands there, looking at the ground as he flies up into his tower. She doesn’t move to her bed until she hears him fall silent, closing her bed’s canopy and burying herself into her pillows until sleep finds her.


	18. Chapter 18

Thankfully she doesn’t have classes on Wednesday until the afternoon, so she stays in bed all morning and skips breakfast in favor of sleeping in and sulking. Leaving her bed seems like an impossible feat when she first wakes up, rolling around and going over constellations until her eyes blur and mix them all together. It feels like forever when she finally peaks out of her bed’s canopy to spy around the room, only coming out when the coast is clear. 

She takes a cold shower and puts on her school clothes, making herself presentable at least on the outside, like a band-aid over her inner turmoil. She looks up into the tower to see Gilbert at his usual roost and almost feels like things are back to something normal, or tolerable. She grabs her books, tells Gilbert she’s leaving for class, when she’ll probably be back, and promptly leaves. 

On Wednesday she has a handful of classes that stretch a little later into the day with a break for lunch in between which she spends with Mei, Elizabeta, and interestingly enough, Feliciano and some of his friends. With his brother Lovino, his friend Honda, and their familiars, they end up having to take up one of the larger tables at lunch for once. 

Her first impression of Lovino is, simply put, bad. For a millisecond when she spots him approaching their table she thinks that he’s Feliciano, their height, faces, and hair similar right down to the curl. But then, a tall brown haired man next to him bustles up by his side and accidentally pushes him into a nearby table. The following curses that left his mouth were so foul that Lili didn’t know if she should laugh or if she should go out of her way to scold him. 

His familiar, Antonio, by contrast, was a delight to be around. He was goofy and a jokester yet polite and kind, the two of them mixing like water and oil. When Feliciano casually whispers to her that Antonio was one of the first in their year to pull off his human shift, Lili can hardly believe it, watching them bicker and slip from topic to topic while laughing in between.

Honda on the other hand is so quiet that Lili doesn’t know how he and Feliciano are friends, although, she’s pretty sure Feliciano could make friends with a wall. He can’t quite look her in the eye when they’re introduced, instead giving a polite short bow and then promptly sitting down to grab his dinner. His familiar on the other hand, a white dog with a curled tail called Im, rather cutely walked up to Lili with his floppy tail wagging and stuck out his paw for her to shake, which she gladly cute. The temptation to call him a good dog was difficult to resist, but somehow she managed. 

They’re a weird mix, but somehow everyone gets along fine. Elizabeta helps Antonio in his and Lovino’s lover’s spats, Mei and Honda strike up a quiet conversation that she can’t hear, and Vlad and Im are noisily chatting also. There’s enough going on that she can forget about the problems that she has to go home to tonight, that is, until Feliciano whispers to her. 

“Lili, I was wondering, do you want to know what Gilbert said yesterday?” He doesn’t need to specify for her to know what he’s talking about. Ludwig, who’s perching on top of Feliciano’s shoulders, lets out a low squawk. “She has the right to know, he said it in front of everyone,” Feliciano quickly whispers to him, gently swatting at his claws to keep him quiet. Ludwig shuffles around a bit but seems to settle. 

Setting down her fork, she brings up a hand to rub the back of her neck. The memory of it is still like a hot brand on her skin that’s cooling, but it doesn’t bother her as much when Feliciano’s the one trying to make her feel better. She doesn’t think there’s a single mean bone in his body. From across the table she spots Vinh slurping away at some food that Mei’s feeding to her tiny bites. “I don’t know, how bad was it?” 

“Hmm, well. It could have been worse.” He pokes at his pasta, curling it around his own fork before stuffing his mouth. He looks morose when he says it, but there’s still that underlying sweetness that he always carries with him. She wonders if he stole all of Lovino’s goodness in the womb. 

“I don’t think I want to hear any of it,” she confesses, pushing her plate away now that she’s lost her appetite. She doesn’t care what Gilbert said about her that’s so nasty and whatever he said that was nice was probably forced anyways. Hearing either would just make her feel worse. Feliciano frowns, fork stuck into a meatball. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to know?” he asks. 

“I’m sure, but thank you, Feliciano.” He bumps shoulders with her, Ludwig swaying on him as he moves. 

“Call me Feli, okay? All my friends do.” 

Smiling, she bumps his shoulder back. 

-  
When she enters her class Beasts and Creatures, a required bestiary class, she’s a little worried that Miss Arlovskaya will stop and say something to her, but all she does is give Lili a little smile. Instead, as she’s walking up the stairs to her seat in the back of the class, the class clown that sits behind her catches her attention. 

He’s an attractive upperclassman, funny, and popular too, always having a crowd of people following in his footsteps. So, when she happens to catch his eyes and he does a double take, suddenly leaning over his desk, she can’t help the smile that worms onto her face. 

“Oh hey! You’re Lola right? The one with the big bird familiar?” he asks, genuine interest written across his face. Her smile dampens a little as she sets down her things, sliding into the seat in front of him and turning behind her to look up at him. 

“It’s Lili, but yes,” she corrects him and he snaps his fingers, frowning at his own social fumble. 

“Sorry about that,” he apologizes and she shakes her head, waving it off. She usually has to correct people about spelling it with a y, but Lola is a first. 

“So is it true that he called you a bitch in front of a crowd?” He still looks sincere, face innocently blank. It feels like the ground is sinking underneath her feet, sucking her in until she’s up to her neck in it. When she looks around at his friends, they’re all smiling and holding in their laughter. 

Face flushed, she turns away and stares down at her desk as they laugh behind her. She guesses that no matter where she runs there’s always going to be some jerk that wants to push her cigarettes into her wounds. Trying to ignore it she fumbles through her bag, pulling out her things for this class. 

“Geez, I guess you really are a bitch,” the boy mocks her just loud enough for her to hear and for his friends to have a round of laughter before class starts. 

It’s the start of something perfectly horrible, but she tries to convince herself that it isn’t as she sits through Miss Arlovskaya’s lecture. They leave her alone for a little while when they realize that she isn’t going to respond to them repeatedly whispering Lola, thankfully, but they whisper among themselves just loud enough for her to get snippets of their conversation. 

They talk about her fainting during her ceremony and spin the ugliest lies and rumours about it together, whispering between themselves about how she botched it and cheated somehow, however that works. When one of them pipes up about how Basch and Roderich are her father’s the conversation spirals into how she’s definitely spoiled by them and probably getting good grades because of their influence at school. 

When Miss Arlovskaya dismisses the class she stays rooted to her seat, legs crossed tight as she prepares for the sweeping rush when they all pass by her. She’d bolt out of the class if she didn’t have Miss Arlovskaya next period as well, her chest tight as they pass by her and say goodbye, using the wrong name of course. She makes a mental note to ask Miss Arlovskaya for a different seat next class as early as she can. 

Thankfully, her elective course on magical creatures is a lot more fun. It’s turning out to be Lili’s favorite class despite it’s awful precursor and she’s glad that she took Basch up on his suggestion for it. Unlike the first class they spend a majority of it outside, walking around the forest near the outskirts of the school and entering the homely barn where Miss Arlovskaya keeps and tends to all of her different critters. 

What’s even more exciting about it, is that she’s good at it. Unlike many of the students, she’s not afraid or intimidated to interact with any of the creatures that Miss Arlovskaya introduces them to. It feels natural even, to bend down and feed a boar that’s three times her size or to go through the social etiquette that’s required to brush a pegasus’s mane. 

It feels like the only part of her week that’s simple. There’s nothing complicated about when she’s just brushing her fingers down a horned rabbit’s spine, listening to it purr like a little motor on top of her lap. In these quiet little moments she’s not a witch, daughter, or a student, but rather, she just simply is. 

-

When she enters her dorm room that night the first thing she does is grab her wand and go straight to the bathroom, shedding her clothes and hopping into the shower. It gives her flashbacks to the last time she thought it was a good idea to practice magic in the shower, but she promises to Basch and Roderich that she won’t push herself so hard this time when she slips inside. 

Sitting at the bottom of the tub she grabs her pink bar of soap, turns on the shower head, and goes wild casting spells. Pink splatters up the shower curtain, green completely coats her, and she’s sure the red is going to leave a stain, but it feels good to be able to mess up and to make a mess of herself. But it’s frustrating too, repeating something over and over that she knows should be easy. 

It’s obvious why she the spell isn’t as refined as it was when the teacher helped her perform it. Gilbert helped her strain and refine her magic, capping it until she could perform something passable, but now that he’s gone she’s struggling again. But there’s no way she could ask him to practice with their confrontation still hanging in the air like it’s got it’s own charge. 

Frustrated, she brushes her teeth so vigorously she spits pink, thinking of when she used to have trouble summoning enough magic to have a drink of water. 

-  
During class the next day Lili finds herself faced with the challenge of making a cone of light from the tip of her wand. The teacher has carefully placed himself in a position that’s not too far from her, hovering in case something goes wrong, and the students that sit next to her have scooted their chairs away just a bit. She doesn’t blame them for it either, holding her wand in her hand like it’s a grenade that could pop in her face at any moment. 

The first thing she does is look to Gilbert to give him a quiet reminder, knowing that he can feel her stare even when he’s looking away. After that she takes a deep breath, hopes, prays, and casts the spell. 

After a night of doing several spells without him, his presence is even more noticeable, intertwined and tangled with her own. The magic in between them is an unstable fickle thing, but with the both of them cupping their hands around it and molding it, it’s starting to settle. It’s a trickier spell because of how the magic has to be consistently regulated in order to make the light not too bright and not too dim and their inexperience here shows through, the light from the tip of her wand quickly bouncing between a flicker and an eyestrain. 

But with enough squeezing, straining, and concentration, the light at the tip of her wand stops flickering like a broken bulb and turns bright like someone’s just flicked on it’s switch. It’s still wavering at the edges, but against the dark ceiling of the classroom it blends in with all of the other lights made by the class. Relief rushes all the way to her fingertips and down to her toes, making her feel as light as a feather.

“That’s excellent, Miss Zwingli!” her teacher calls out to her and when she turns to say something, a wide smile on her face, her concentration snaps. The light at the tip of her wand goes from a sufficient cone of light to laser thin pinprick at the top of the ceiling, sparking with flames. It goes from quiet to people suddenly yelling and she panics, jerking the wand at arms length and subsequently making a fiery line on the ceiling which just makes the yelling ten times worse. She’s not sure what to do, her concentration and her magic slipping between her fingers uncontrollably and a room full of voices sending her mix messages until - 

Just drop it! 

-and she does. The second she lets go of her wand the laser instantly flickers out and it clatters on top of her desk, safe and unharmed. Thankfully they have sufficient lighting with all of the students casting the same spell, each of them making a grand spotlight on the ceiling to show off her mistake. 

There’s a black little dot with a long curly tail that extends across about half of the ceiling, stark and bright against it’s white backdrop. The room is silent and someone whistles low and sweet, making her blush. 

“Well, I’m glad that your wand was pointed at the ceiling!” Her teacher jokes and a few people laugh as she sinks into her seat a little, smiling despite her embarrassment. When she peeks at Gilbert she plays the words over in her head, eyes tracing his silhouette in the dark as she thinks of the panic and urgency that he slipped through their bond, but more importantly, 

the sound of his voice. 

-

After morning classes, on her way to lunch, she happens to pass by the class clown from her bestiary class. He’s surrounded by what she’s come to understand are his lackeys and their familiars, the group hanging around in a crowded hallway near an open window that she’s pretty sure they’re not suppose to be sitting at. It’s also the first time she’s ever seen the class clown’s familiar and it’s definitely flashy as he is, suiting him too well she thinks. 

It’s a huge wasp, at least three feet long in length, that’s taken to clinging around his chest and on his back much like she’s seen Vlad do to Elizabeta, only a hundred times less cute. Lili tries not to judge people on their familiars but this wasp looks menacing, large stinger hanging from it’s bottom and eyes piercing black holes. 

When she notices them she ducks her head and tries to speed by, which was probably her first mistake, because somehow she trips on something and she falls to her knees, catching herself on her hands hard enough that it stings. Thankfully she wasn’t carrying her books in her hands, but it does gain her the attention of the group across the hall from her. 

“Lola! Hey guys it’s Lola!” They jeer and call out to her as she picks herself up, quickly getting to her feet before they get the idea to do something like approach her. She speeds down the hall with Gilbert in tow, palms bright red and throbbing as she makes her way to the cafeteria. 

Later at dinner while Gilbert’s busy messing with Ludwig and Antonio, a new found friend it seems like, Feli scolds her and make her open up her palms, casting a healing spell with expertise. The redness stitches together and fades like she’s watching a timelapse, the sensation like a cool balm on her skin. From across the field she can see Ludwig tense up, obviously curious, before Gilbert bowls into him. 

When she tells Feli that she tripped, it really is the truth, so she doesn’t feel so bad for insisting it when he looks at her so seriously. It’s sort of funny watching him try to be stern with how carefree he can be, but she supposes that he is an older brother, even if Lovino would vehemently deny it. 

By the time she’s walking sandwiched between Elizabeta and Feli as they walk down to the Sewing Club meet up she feels good again, her little run in earlier with the guy from her bestiary class long forgotten. Setting herself up between the two of them is practically the recipe for making her laugh, breathless as they approach the meeting spot. 

Like the last meeting everyone settles by the edges of the woods and looks towards the barn nearby and at the school behind them, waiting for Miss Arlovskaya to pop up from either place to start the class. What they don’t expect is for her to pop out from the woods, twigs and the brush cracking under her feet as she approaches with several bundles of black silk in her hands. 

“Hello everyone! Please, sit, sit! Sorry I’m late.” she smiles breathlessly, drawing her headband from her hair that’s sticking to her sweat, drawing her fingers through it. Everyone comes in a bit closer to her and plop themselves down, scattered across the grass.

“Alright, so before we start our activity today we’re going to do a quick healthy exercise between witch and familiar. To start, I want everybody to close their eyes.” Lili looks around to see people shifting around a bit, some of them getting closer to their familiars. Closing her eyes, she doesn’t bother to look back at Gilbert. Miss Arlovskaya scolds a few people lightly for peeking, people laughing as she does so. 

“Now, I want everyone to focus and concentrate on their bond as I speak. Reach out to each other and try to connect without actual words, even if it’s just to share a joke or what you ate for breakfast this morning. Or maybe you need to get something off your chest. Whatever it is, just take a second to communicate through your bond. Strengthen it.” Miss Arlovskaya stands at the head of the circle, her voice fading from it’s usual chipper tone to something soothing and smooth. It’s nice, but Lili can’t help but feel awkward, hesitating to reach out to their bond, her hands just within reach. 

She doesn’t want to share with Gilbert anything that’s really bothering her, but she feels like if she shared how she had a cup of fruit this morning he’d make fun of her for it somehow. Quietly sighing, she settles on thinking about how good she felt this morning when they pulled the spell off together, right before she screwed it up. When she reaches out and cups their bond in her hands, the sound of their shared heartbeat in her ears for the first time in days, it feels like ripping off a dirty band-aid and revealing clean skin underneath. 

But there’s the distinct feeling of Gilbert reeling back, his presence absent from where it should be. It’s like dipping her hand in a fountain in the middle of summer, waving it in only to feel nothing slip between her fingers and looking down to see it’s been dried up. Her fingertips press against warm colored tiles, a heart beating underneath. It feels like talking to a door, Gilbert hiding behind it. 

She tries to press on anyways, sending her feelings through their bond as she thinks back to how she felt this morning. She can see their bright flickering light against the ceiling, swirling around several others as the feeling of success melts like sugar on her tongue. 

“Alright, you can all open your eyes now. Do a little stretch, wiggle your toes, wake up,” Miss Arlovskaya interrupts her, pulling her out from her connection a little too fast for her liking. It feels like being underwater except she can breath, pressure surrounding her from all sides in a way that’s chilling but makes her warm and a little drowsy too. She follows Elizabeta’s lead, waving her feet from side to side. Feli catches on quick and their all doing it, rolling their heels side to side in sync. 

“Today, you’ll all be going on a little treasure hunt that I’ve set up for you. You’ll be going into the woods with your familiar and searching for one of the many medallions that I’ve hidden. I’ve also drawn out the perimeter of the area with a pink rope, so as long as you don’t bump into that you won’t be going to far.” Miss Arlovskaya’s already passing out the long black strands of silk to each pair and Lili can practically feel her dread fermenting as she comes closer. 

“But there’s a little catch. Your familiar will be blindfolded and you’ll have to help guide them with your voice as you make your way through the woods. When you find a medallion you’ll switch and the witch will be blindfolded and lead by touch by the familiar. For the nonverbal familiars today, I’ll handout a piece of silk that you can pull your witch by, but the focus here should be on communicating through your bond.” Miss Arlovskaya hands Lili two long strands of black silk, the fabric folding and curling over in her hands like icing. Feli looks excited next to her and Elizabeta looks confident, taking a little ribbon and tying it over Vlad’s eyes. When she tells him he looks adorable he squeaks back at her, probably offended. 

“I’ll be going through the woods and patrolling the area to make sure there’s no cheaters but also that nobody gets hurt. Remember to move slow; this isn’t a competition and there’s a medallion and a treat for everyone at the end. Except the cheaters.” Clapping her hands together Miss Arlovskaya looks out at everyone, smiling as if she’s just prepared a real treat for them. A lot of kids seem excited, but when Lili turns around to Gilbert staring right back at her she nearly gets shivers. 

“You can start whenever you’re ready,” Miss Arlovskaya calls out over her shoulder, marching out into the woods with a few of the other students who were raring to go. Feli is one of them, singing a loud tune and moving fast as Ludwig follows close behind. Something tells her that this is going to take them no time at all. 

Turning back to Gilbert with the silk blindfolds in her hands she hobbles forwards on her knees to close the gap between them. Gilbert looks uncomfortable, his feathers flattened against himself as she approaches. For a moment where neither of them move or say anything, like they’re both unsure if they’re really going to do this. 

“Bend your head down, please?” Lili takes the dive, looking up at him as she raises one of the silk blindfolds in the air. He can’t tie it himself, so she’ll have to do it. She’s never seen Gilbert look quite so uneasy before, his head rearing back as he looks away. She’s not sure if he’ll do it for a moment, but then his head comes sweeping down and his eyes flutter close. 

It’s a reminder of how huge he is when he’s this close, his head nearly half her size. She moves too quick to really study anything about him, but it’s admittedly cool seeing him this up close. She smooths out the black of the ribbon against his feathers and ties it snug underneath his chin, effectively blinding him. 

“Alright,” she says, backing away a little bit and standing up, dusting herself off. He raises his head a little, cocking it from side to side and making the ribbon under his chin sway. Lili can’t help but smile with how silly he looks, her big bully of a familiar now helpless. It makes her feel a little bad for him, his body tensed and head cocking every time someone makes a loud sound off in the woods. 

“I’ll lead you to the edge of the woods by touch and after that we’ll start for real. If that’s okay with you?” She looks up at him, for once feeling bigger when he leans his head down next to her and gives a curt nod. “I’ll just... hold onto your neck I guess.” 

He’s too bulky to be lead from the side and if he stays hunched like she know he can, then it’s easy for her to lead in front of him. Carefully, she places a hand to his neck, resisting the urge to brush the soft feathers there as she starts to make her first few steps. 

“Come on,” she mumbles and he hesitates before moving forwards, following after her touch. She’s sure that he has some kind of advanced hearing but it still must be disorienting to be put in this kind of situation, especially when you’re the big tough guy type. When they approach the edge of the woods she slows down, pressing against him to make him come to a stop before she pulls away entirely. 

“Ok, we’re at the edge of the woods. So, I guess I’ll walk ahead of you and you can follow after the sound of my voice. I’ll tell you if there’s a branch or anything, so don’t worry.” The first few steps are the slowest, Lili learning how to navigate him with her voice and him easing into trusting her with his sight. Thankfully, the woods that surround the school aren’t densely packed with little close knit trees so even Gilbert can weave in between them without having to squish himself. 

They don’t cheat but as they work out a flow between them they get close to it. Gilbert is basically hovering over her, crouched low to the ground with his head hanging right above her shoulder as she continuously narrates their journey for the woods. Of course the method isn’t perfect and he does end up bumping into a few things, which she quickly apologizes for, seeing his feathers ruffle, but over all it’s not that bad. 

She listens to Miss Arlovskaya’s advice and tries to reach out through their bond to help guide him, but when she pushes he pulls back like a pendulum. She manages to keep it up for a little while, trying to stream what she sees, but it’s hard work with how neglected their bond is. It reminds her of when she tried a few puffs from a cigarette she got from a girl in one of the worse foster homes, her throat and lungs itching and making her cough so hard she almost got sick. She’s certainly not sick from doing it, but she isn’t used to it. After a little while, she gives up and just concentrates on finding the medallion. 

It’s weird having him close enough to hear when his breath catches, especially knowing how much distaste he has for her. She’s surprised at all that he went through with this and allowed himself to be any kind of vulnerable in front of her, but at the same time she’s not surprised at all. Gilbert knows full well that a bad word from Miss Arlovskaya probably means another meeting with the headmistress and she’s pretty sure that Gilbert doesn’t want to see Bast again until he has to. 

“Stop,” she says suddenly, cutting into her long ramble and coming to an abrupt stop. Gilbert, with his amazing reflexes, catches himself before he bumps into her, saving them both from the embarrassment. 

“Hanging off a branch that’s not to far from us is a medallion. It’s kinda high up, but I think if you stretch you can probably reach it.” It’s hanging from a bright pink necklace, shimmering and glowing where the sun hits it. She’s seen quite a few people pass by her on their way back to the edge of the woods, wearing their own medallions. This is probably one of the harder ones to get, depending on if your familiar can fly or happens to be tall like hers is. 

She leads and positions him until the medallion is dangling perfectly overhead and gives him the OK, but he hesitates, standing still. His head is cocked in her direction and she’s reminded of when she looks to him in their classes together, nervous and putting her faith in him again and again. 

“It’s above you. Trust me, you just have to reach for it,” she tries to sound reassuring, but she’s not sure if he buys it. He stands there for a moment, quiet, before he sighs and starts to reach for the medallion. 

She watches him stretch out further and further, giving her the kind of display that she’s sure would make a photographer go wild. His neck extends, his legs stretch, and he balances on the tips of his feet trying to reach, blindly nipping upwards. He’s positioned perfectly but it’s still just barely out of reach from his beak. 

“You just need to jump a little and you’ve got it,” she guides him from the side, watching as he extends his wings and pushes himself up with a flutter, giving just enough lift to slide the medallion in his beak. As he comes down it slides off the tip of it’s branch and comes loose. 

She doesn’t need to untie Gilbert’s blindfold because when he lowers himself back down he immediately and briskly shakes it off, using a wing to help push it. It falls to the ground and she watches as he blinks, eyes readjusting to the light. 

“I’ll wear the medallion,” she says, but Gilbert seems a little reluctant to let go of it. Regardless, he drops it into her hand after a moment, the medallion itself heavily dented by the grip of his beak. She picks it up and slides it on before she picks up the blindfold Gilbert’s dropped and starts to tie it on, smoothing it across her eyes. The other long string of silk she pulls out after from her pockets, feeling out the end of it and lifting the other end blindly for Gilbert to hold onto. 

She wonders if it’s really necessary to through with all of this now that she’s blindfolded. She hasn’t seen Miss Arlovskaya since they entered the forest and it’s been several minutes since then, but all thoughts go out the window when Gilbert gives the first tug and starts leading her through the forest. 

She’s good for a few feet, having just looked at the scenery, but after they leave the small area she’s familiar with she trips almost immediately and goes spiraling forwards with a yelp. Hands out and bracing herself, she expects to tumble against the hard ground, but instead before she can even teeter over all the way she goes face first into feathers. 

Gilbert is warm, soft, and surprisingly solid underneath her, effortlessly holding up the near entirety of her weight and gently pushing her back up. She apologizes immediately and profusely as she pushes herself up from him, hands full of amazingly soft feathers, but Gilbert doesn’t respond vocally, through the bond, or at all really. Instead he just quietly shortens the distance between their string and pulls her on at a much slower pace than before. 

He’s surprisingly patient as she feels her way out, hands passing over trees and occasionally brushing some feathery part of him by accident. He’s positioned himself closer to her after her tumble, never too far and just in reach if she slips on something. The sound of his gnarled feet crushing leaves and clinking against branches on the ground helps guide her, though on occasion he’ll give her a little squawk and tug if she’s about to bump into something. 

It’s scary at first, being so dependent on him with the history between them, but as they move further out of the forest she grows more confident that he really won’t let anything happen to her. Their bond still lays limp between them, untouched, but it doesn’t bother her as much as when she first started. It feels like too much to ask when he’s already so diligently tending to her, especially when she knows how he feels about her.

She knows they’re by the edge of the woods when she can hear people talking in the distance, but Gilbert is steady and patient with her until the very brink of the woods. She’s almost kind of sad when it’s over and Miss Arlovskaya is telling her to pull off her blindfold and to come grab a slice of cake, Gilbert rushing over to Ludwig’s side and back to pretending that she doesn’t exist again. 

His voice replays through her head the rest of the night like a broken record and she can’t seem to forget the sensation of a face full of feathers. 

-

Before she knows it the weekend is rolling by, Saturday mostly spent hanging out in Basch and Roderich’s dorm, playing the piano and going over some of her homework with Basch. She doesn’t tell either of them about the jerks in her bestiary class or the tension every time she steps into her dorm room, but she does tell them that Gilbert’s becoming friendlier.

She really does believe it too, even if the progress is slow. He’s opening up to other people fine at least and even seems to be making friends with some, loud and boisterous when he hangs out with Ludwig, Vlad, or Antonio. It’s not like he’s hell bent on making her life horrible anymore either, helping her in class and at least tolerating her when it’s time of Sewing Club. She’d be happier if he’d come down from his tower more often and maybe help her with her homework at times, but she knows she can’t push him. 

When Roderich asks her how she feels about him so far she almost doesn’t know how to respond; she’s been so busy managing him and worrying about working with him that she hasn’t really thought about it. To placate her parents she just rattles off that he’s alright, which she guesses is kind of true. 

Gilbert can be a real pain, but she can’t stay at mad him when she feels like most of his anger is justified, so she’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. Part of her wants to get mad at him for treating her this way for this long, but the other part of her that’s mystified with everything that he is still, somehow, genuinely wants to know the person that can even make Ludwig crack out laughing. 

She goes to bed their dorm that night and frowns when she sees that his perch is still knocked over, it’s presence scratching at the back of her mind like an owl outside her window. 

-

Monday morning she goes to her bestiary class early to ask Miss Arlovskaya to change her seat and gets moved quickly and without question. She doesn’t know if Miss Arlovskaya is at all noticing what goes on in the classroom when her back’s turned but Lili guesses it doesn’t matter anymore that she’s in the furthest possible seat from where she used to be. 

Fortunately Lili has the security of sitting close to the board now so when the class clown struts into the room with his posse a few minutes before the bell she’s untouchable unless he wants detention. She sits through the rest of the class comfortably, any anxiety that she feels trickling away until she’s forgotten about him completely until Miss Arlovskaya dismisses them and pops out the door to get what must be a refill of coffee. 

The people down her row file out to make room for the new class and she panics when she realizes that the class clown is quickly making his way down the stairs and going as far to skirt past people leaving her aisle to ensure that he gets a seat next to her. She prays hard in that moment she can leech off of Gilbert through their bond just once and momentarily steal his ability to repel people so effectively. 

“Hey, Lola,” he starts, sliding into the rolling chair next to her and scooting so close that she can smell his gross cologne. His friends are already snickering as he preps for whatever he’s about to say, running a hand through his hair before folding his hands together on top of the desk. His arms flex with strength, hands pressed together in a way that reminds her of a spring about to pop. 

“So me and my friends were making bets and we were just wondering, who takes it up the ass, Zwingli or his familiar? Cause I’ve got big money stacked on Zwingli. He seems like a howler, deep down,” he says it loud enough to broadcast it to what few people are still in the room and casually enough to seem like they’re talking about the weather. Lili’s fear snaps to ice cold rage in a second, her vision blurring as she squeezes her hands into fists and whips her head towards him. 

“Fuck you,” she hisses at him, voice heavy with malice as she glares into his cornflower blue eyes. She’s never hated a single color so much before. 

When he tilts his head backs and laughs it shakes her down to her very core, cold hate making her body numb as she stares him down. His body relaxes as his laughter subsides and he runs a hand through his hair again, before his body lunges forwards and cracks like a whip, grabbing her by the shoulder so hard she yelps and grabs him by the arm. He slams her into the wall behind her, moving in so close that she has to recoil and turn her head away, revealing her neck to him. She digs her fingernails hard enough into his arms that her hands tremble unsteadily with the pressure, body scrunching up as he leans in. 

“Fuck me? Yeah I bet you want to,” he whispers in her ear, lips nearly brushing the shell of it. She shivers, tears pricking the corners of her eyes and heart squeezing so hard that it aches. 

With a rough final shove he pushes her against the wall and lets go, laughing as he turns and walks away. His posse is quieter this time, one of the girls in it looking down at the floor with a twisted expression before he leads them out of the room, leaving her alone. 

-

That night when she’s in the bathroom she stares at the hand shaped bruise on her upper arm, dark splotches of color marring her skin. She turns on the shower so hot that it makes her skin red, like she can erase the touch of his skin if she tries hard enough. When she cries she hopes that Gilbert can’t hear her over the shower spray, the hurt welling up tight in her chest where she buries it. 

She can’t report it, can’t let Basch and Roderich know that there’s some kind of problem again. She’ll just get better at avoiding him. Nobody can see the bruise anyways. There doesn’t have to be a problem; there isn’t a problem. 

She can handle this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comment p-pwease...


End file.
